


Baby, We're Nothing but Violence

by mussings_over_tea



Series: Stages of Grief [1]
Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, NOT ACTUAL DICKING DOWN HAPPENS alas!, Porn with Feelings, Rafa is a mess because i needed him to match Nick's regular mess, also absolutely no one nobody ever: ..., but it ended up as, cos he doesn't here yep failed to mention this is porn BUT, hmm will i ever give them a happy end on screen? we will never know, it started as actual PWP cos after writing 34854375 words for them that were somehow, me: what do you mean nick kyrgios' main source of motivation and dedication, not explicit porn i got offended and needed to fix that, not to write one (so that nick could actually get that D), they are really a mess here together so that's good OR IS IT?, this is not the genuine CARROT METHOD rafa would use ??, this should have a sequel and i don't think i have enough of an impulse control, to tennis is not the prospect of getting rafa's d and it fuels him to the point of, winning slams? and in that ultimate what if in which rafa is training nick, yep when i say i want rafa to train nick it's not always with regular cardio ...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21760924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mussings_over_tea/pseuds/mussings_over_tea
Summary: "This is what I carry. This is what I carry every day. I want. I want. I want. And I can’t have."Rafa's body falls apart on him before he is ready to say goodbye to tennis (because he will never be ready) and with his bleeding hands and broken heart he still plays the game with Nick. Neither really knows whose blood they taste on each other's bodies in the end.
Relationships: Nick Kyrgios/Rafael Nadal, Rafael Nadal/María Francisca Perello (mentioned), Rafael Nadal/Nick Kyrgios
Series: Stages of Grief [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586404
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Baby, We're Nothing but Violence

Nick hates the clay season. He always did. He’s on a difficult rise now, putting his shit together, trying to stay committed, but the clay season was always a setback for him. The surface whimsical, untamable, leaving marks of a failure all over his skin. He felt sweaty, dirty and defeated by it every time he did play it, every time he managed to stay consistent enough to.

He does now.

He really does.

Or he tries.

The motivation comes and goes, like with every job. It’s no longer a loveless marriage for him. There are such a few moments where he wants to come back to it to feel the thrill of what used to be, like you do, with your spouse, suddenly remembering, how they sounded against the wall in the kitchen when you fucked like young and stupid and thinking no one will taste like that ever again. That loveless marriage that sometimes strikes you with pure heat of lust from before and you fuck quickly in the garage trying to regain the scraps of before from each other’s skin.

He did feel like this, once. About tennis. This passion of _one more time, come on, remind me why I’m here, remind me why I ever wanted you in the first place_.

But tennis tour is a mess now, of young guys having their moments and disappearing into nonexistence few matches later. No one really sticks. No one shines bright enough for the effect to stay.

Not since the last romantics of tennis withdrew, let the history claim them as legends and myths, heroes of decaying era, as the media like to call it.

They are in a strange, empty, transitional period.

Purgatory of sorts.

With no saviours on the horizon to deliver them from the mundane and uneventful. No more thrill of waiting for the draw to put them against the titans on the arena of ancient games. No more awe mingled with arousal when you win, tasting your sweat, their sweat, on your tongue, in your nostrils, strange kind of intimacy but raw physicality, too.

The realisation of the arena being empty of the heroes never hits Nick more, than during Roland Garros. Since the king abdicated, this land of his was consumed by red chaos of poor imposters, princes of clay, they sometimes dared to call them, acting like they can win the throne for themselves. Even for a moment. No matter how fleeting and shallow the victory was.

Since the king abdicated, there was not much thrill and passion left in tennis at all, and for Nick. Still, he continued, no longer in a loveless marriage with fire rekindled occasionally, but in a monotonous chore tennis has become for him.

Paris is ready for yet another battle royale of the pretenders daring to claim His throne. To feed the illusion that the show goes on and there can still be fireworks there, and the red of clay remains as vivid as it did before.

Nick doesn’t really fucking care.

He’s here to earn his share, to keep the Foundation going, to literally pay his bills.

So obviously, just before the inauguration, he ends up in a local pub, no one wants to join him at, because they are all poster boys, thinking the mythical glory can be won and they will find themselves among the ranks of ancient heroes like they belong there and not delude themselves into thinking they do.

Alex’s been training for the last week, tennis the only thing on his mind, always. It’s a chore that earns him money for Nick, for Alex, it’s a way of life. There was a time he used to be envious, of this kid’s heart. And then guilty. Because Alex’s been working hard, loving this sport, and yet glory remained whimsical and out of his reach. Alex was a craftsman, his love for tennis - unrequited. Nick felt guilty because it was the other way round with him. Tennis adored him and he more often than not spat at it with hatred.

Thanasi’s probably in the sauna, or an ice bath, fussing over his body not to fail him, not to fall apart, like it often does. Tennis is a heartless bitch with Thanasi, even though he always treated it right. Even though he’s had nothing but devotion to it. Tennis doesn’t share his sentiment.

And Jordan is most probably chatting with his family. He settled down, tennis, mostly a hobby, a pleasant addition to his fulfilling life. Nothing more, nothing less. No pressure whatsoever. Just fun.

Which leaves Nick in that bar, drinking his bitter, sad beer, tennis something inevitable, something he will always come back to, the only stable thing he really has. After years and years of marriage, when there is nothing but cold, bored routine left and you come back home to see the same face, greeting you with emptiness and same, numb words: _oh it’s you, again. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?_

The chatter around him makes his head buzz, the music sipping through the speakers itches his skin and he wonders when did he grow up and this, this whole ridiculous routine of drowning pre-slam jitters with routine suffocation became something unfamiliar, something he doesn’t know how to do anymore.

Back in the day, he would perform his clown of the crowd routine, in a group of people being there for him, or maybe for the fact they could bask in the status of recognized and known, because associated with _enfant terrible_. He would take thousand of pictures to maintain the pretense, to keep the shitshow going, as it was expected of him ( _Are you not entertained?_ ). He would end up buried deep in warm, eager bodies, forgetting about anything that isn’t the sound of his name moaned so loud it might have been real, it might have been true and the fact they would never call each other later on, irrelevant.

Now he’s alone at the bar, mumbling to himself, cursing under his breath, people not really paying attention, because he never really got to the point of becoming their hero and his comedy act grew old real fast, real soon, new entertainers coming along, stealing the crowd, owning the arena with their fake shininess and desperation concealed as exaggerated antics.

And then he thinks he can see a familiar posture.

God, he wouldn’t dare to assume he knows this body, the way it sits, the way it takes up space. He wouldn’t dare to assume he can call it familiar in any way. And yet this body became a monument, of public adoration, of public appraisal, and yet he does recognize it and yet he feels like he knows it.

And he would at the edge of the world.

The fire he used to feel for tennis (fury, passion, anger, desperation) lights up inside him in longing of recognition.

It’s Nadal. In his Academy cap, with his broad back covered in a plain Tshirt, but bent and broken over a drink Nick never saw him with, slumped and resigned, unlike proud, invincible warrior he always was. 

Fuck.

It’s been 3 years.

*

Nick didn’t growl in triumph after that match, like he would, back in the days. Nick didn’t fall to the grass of Central Court to soak up the feeling of thrill and ecstasy inside. Nick didn’t feel high, like brimming with so much he thinks it will burst out of him, skin stretched too tight like during intimate act almost.

Nick felt like he did with Andy, before. Stealing his comeback, soiling this resurrection, on his homeland, the betrayal, tasting like ashes on his tongue and a bile of bitterness in his throat. 

They went through solid 4 sets together.

Almost like before.

Tearing the ball from each other on equal ground, like complementing each other. Nadal’s strength, Nick’s sneakiness, Nadal’s fire, Nick’s volcano, Nadal’s strategy, Nick’s destruction. Nick was trying to consume every last drop of this spectacle of theirs, like it’s the last time, like there will be no more, like there will be no other.

It’d been like that for a while, since Nadal’s body started to fall to pieces, slowly, inevitably, his seasons becoming shorter and shorter, with few announcements of his return, only rarely fulfilled. Never knowing when it is the last time.

So, whenever the draw graced Nick with this chance, he would gorge on it, hungry, desperate, thinking this feeling will never be really appeased. Thinking they were destined to do this forever.

Except they weren’t.

That year’s Rolad Garros was Nadal’s last successful run, and Nick always thought it fits. It’s how it should be. The king claiming his possession. The king spelling _mine_ on the land that was never anyone else’s. And the imposters trying to take it away from him later on and failing.

_Fools._

_It’s not yours._

_It can never be yours._

Everything else that followed was only a bitter confirmation of what they all had been saying before.

That he’s done.

That he’s paid his pound of flesh.

Tennis for Nadal was a toxic, violent lover, Rafa always came back to, or another fix, and then another, and then another, until he was nothing but a pile of ruins, with heart still bleeding with purest love and devotion. With willingness to never stop.

_We can do it. We can still fix it. We’re gonna be great again. Just wait and see._

After the announcement of Nick’s win (it’s quarterfinals, he feels sick to his stomach) he approaches the net in heavy steps, legs made of concrete. Nadal escapes his eyes, barely brushes his hand against Nick’s chest in a robotic gesture of appreciation and before Nick notices he disappears, like the wind, between his hands, the crowd subdued, clapping curtly, because it’s Wimbledon but the tension in the air rises. Nick thinks he can hear the murmurs: _traitor, traitor, traitor._

Fucking quarterfinals. Nadal was so close and yet Nick stood on his way, sealing their draw 5-5, making him choke on the inevitable: that this is the last time. This is the last time they played professional tennis against each other.

Or together? Because it sure as fuck felt like it. Always. 

Nick finds him in the lockers, transfixed, distant, staring blankly into the inside of it, pose bent, instead of proud, strong, imposing. Maybe he had it even then. But they refused to notice. They refused to see. Nick certainly did. Burden of sacrifice under which his body was visibly breaking.

Returning hand injuries, abdominal strain putting him out for half a year, back pains and elbow’s soreness. It depended on a year. It varied. It was consistently merciless. The verdict. He was falling apart and there was no stopping it.

To see it now from up so close is like facing a tragedy in slow motion and still not being able to look away.

Not often you see demigods crumbling into mortality.

Nadal is keeping himself upwards, with his hand clutching the doors of the locker and Nick wants to run, wants to leave him with it, Nick wants to put hands on his eyes and pretend he doesn’t see a monster jumping into the screen when he was a child and acted like he’s brave enough to watch horror films.

But he wants to go to him, too. And put the pieces together. Put the ideal back on the pedestal. Because it can’t be. This can’t be it.

His last time? Their last time?

“It was a good match. A great match,” he sounds hoarse, like he’s imposing. Because he is. He continues, way too hopeful, a fucking naïve, stuttering child. “There’s still half a year. There’s still New York. There’s your beloved Montreal. They won’t want anyone else.”

Rafa doesn’t jerk under the sound of his voice. Rafa looks like he’s behind the fog, his responses like lagging.

He chuckles. It’s bitter and cold.

“I took 5 shots. I used to need only 2. But it was with masters. With slams it was never enough. Until not even 5 worked. My body feels like not my own. For a while now. I think I don’t remember the times it wasn’t like this.”

Rafa shares a lot, not looking back, not looking at Nick, so maybe that’s why he does, or maybe he’s just high as fucking kite on the painkillers. No more inhibitions. A raw, festering wound for everyone to see.

Nick gulps on the ashes, on the bile inside his throat. Nick gulps on the words he wants to say in response. _Fuck. Please. It’s unfair. I’m sorry._

He thinks tennis really is a fickle bitch. And he thinks he would be willing to trade his body, his strong body, but weak brain, for Rafa to continue his legacy. He gulps on the words _take my body, take it, do whatever you want with it,_ almost.

He wants to go to him. He wants to touch. He wants to beseech him, he’s all right. He must be. There is no tennis without him. But he keeps his distance and grunts seemingly casual. “This fucking blows, man.”

“Si. It fucking does,” and Rafa acts like he woke up from a trance, packing up his back, taking his Tshirt off, reaching for the towel. A machine recreating programmed moves. His body not his own, after all.

Nick watches. Drinks the image up but it hurts. It’s acted out. It’s pretended. Even though his back is large, the muscles strain, the strength is still there, this titan of power. It’s incomplete. Pieces missing. Along with convinction.

Nick wants him to look at him. If this is the last time. They’ve been doing this for so long. This dance on court. This battle on the arena. Nick was always one step behind, sometimes catching up, sometimes staying behind. But he was always there. A rival. A protégé. A most devoted fan. Did Rafa know?

_Fuck. Look at me._

Nick pleads inside his head. Wanting to go to him. To push him against the lockers. To hold him. To shake him. To drag him closer. To push him away. Fuck. Everything. Everything. He wants to go down to his knees to show him everything he felt, everything he does with him around. Want, need, frustration, hatred, longing, devotion. He wants to taste him, spent him. He wants to be spent by him. Till last drop. Till he is nothing but the feel of wanting him and having him. 

He doesn’t. He doesn’t dare. He clenches his hand into a fist. The adrenaline in his body still buzzes, making him half hard, making him yearn. Because it wasn’t their usual match, where Nick felt brought to climax, spent and spilled and so fucking sated. It wasn’t Rafa that he knew, manhandling him, pulling him, pinning him, dragging him. It was barely an echo of what they had on court. And Nick feels like screaming in selfishness, too. Wanting this back. Wanting Rafa’s marks on himself. To cherish. To wear. Forever.

He doesn’t even get the look, though. And it will haunt him forever. Because they are not done. They will never be done.

“You’re right, Nick. You played good match. Keep doing, what you’re doing and maybe you get there. Eventually. In like 5 years,” Nick thinks he can hear the chuckle there. He wonders if Rafa has that face, with an eyebrow, that playfulness about him, he hasn’t shown for so long.

He almost calls after him. His name? Or more? _Please. Stay_. _It doesn’t matter without you._

But he doesn’t.

And it’s stuck at the back of his head, on the loop, this what if, this why. Would have, Could have. For the next few years as he descends into the routine of tennis, without any spark, without any will to do, to be, not even a loveless marriage with a prospect of quick fuck to remember good times.

A chore that makes him suffocate.

*

It doesn’t feel like 3 years. Maybe because Nick never stopped thinking about the times before. Maybe because Nadal’s presence was always felt so deep on court, or his absence, something tangible, something real, something with shape. 

Haunting them. Haunting him.

A ghost or a memory or a nightmare.

Nick’s moving, his body filled with gravity, like on court with Nadal, when he knew where to run to meet the shot halfway, where he would run miles to return his balls, to stay ahead, to follow his every step. Nick ‘s moving and he’s by his side faster than his service ball reaches the spot he’s aimed at.

He’s been yearning for it so long. He’s not letting this out of his hands now.

“Not your usual routine before the matches. Who corrupted you and how come it wasn’t me?” and he plops obnoxiously in front of him, by the table, with his glass of beer and his longings running high inside his blood system, trying not to devour every little detail about Nadal with his eyes.

“And then of course you’re here. Some things never change, si?”

The lines on his face are not distinctive, he’s tan, olive skin rich and delicious, but his eyes looking up from beneath RAFA cap look tired and old. Muddy brown. Nick misses the spark, he misses the challenge there. The vividness and warmth of that honey. His cheekbones look like carved in marble, not sullen like they used to make him look. When he was in constant pain. When he was bleeding out for this sport that said no to him, that rejected all his love, all his devotion. He’s drinking something tacky and colourful, a drink of someone who doesn’t care what’s there, doesn’t feel it, doesn’t taste it but craves the numbness of it all the same. Nick looks at his hands, thinks about scars or badges of honour they have, thinks about the strength and largeness of them (a shelter and a weapon) and notices the lack of a ring. Rafa never wore it, because it interfered with his tennis routines, officially, or because he was really only ever married to tennis, in truth? But now, out of court, his fingers are still bare, the only markings left there - markings of the racket handle as it should be.

“I have a reputation to maintain, and all the standards to meet, do I?” Nick sips on his drink, acting nonchalant, but filled with sensations, like before their matches, like waiting in the hallway, knowing he’s going to face this gladiator on the arena in a battle that will leave him scarred, _no_ \- marked or claimed till next time.

A parchment of the most violent affair in the history.

“Saludos a eso,” Rafa lifts his glass and drinks and Nick watches his lips and Nick wonders how often they touched alcohol and how it would taste on his tongue, along with wasted chances and never realized what ifs.

“And to your come back?” Nick wants to try the words out in his mouth like something real. He wants to hear them out loud, true and possible and spoken and happening. Even if he knows they won’t. Even if he knows it’s his desperation only.

Rafa doesn’t even look offended. The spark in his eyes, that fire inside him, gone, stolen. Nick feels like screaming.

“They didn’t bury me yet?” he asks, with a bitter smirk that used to be cute, wry smile. Nick feels like tearing things to pieces.

“They tried but you’re too persistent. You’ve always been too persistent,” Nick smiles over the rim of his glass. Feeling the closeness of Rafa’s legs, wanting to feel more of it. The warmth inside him spreads and it’s not the booze.

“Persistent?” the eyebrow raised makes Nick almost implode from within. Flashes of the past, echoes of it lurking behind this face. Like he’s not gone. Like he’s not buried. Like he’s not dead.

“Not letting go,” Nick prompts.

“I did let go,” Rafa says, empty.

“But tennis hasn’t,” Nick searches his eyes to know whether he understands the gravity of it. Whether he understands Nick is talking about himself. He feels like an open wound bleeding out his obsession with Rafa, out in the open, vulnerable, in his hands.

He’s also referring to the fact that Rafa’s here, in Paris, after 3 years of not showing up at any tournaments, after 3 years of not playing tennis professionally, after 3 years of disappearing from the face of the earth, because if he’s not on court, the greatest of all time, he doesn’t exist. Yes?

“Aparentemente, “ Rafa comments bitterly, finishing up his drink. Nick is transfixed with the way his throat works around the liquid, a light stubble touching his jawline, the muscles are moving and Nick bleeds out some more.

“So, what’s the occasion?” he sounds hoarse, gulping it down with a bitter taste of beer. He thinks his calf brushes with Rafa’s. Rafa doesn’t move his leg away. Nick thinks he’s going to bleed out soon.

“It’s 20th anniversary of my first win here, I guess. So they want me to do the honours. To, corona al nuevo rey,” Rafa makes a vague gesture with his empty glass. Deflated and resigned.

“That’s bullshit. These guys come and go, and they announce a new star of clay every year. That’s ridiculous. That’s desperation, “ Nick lights up, his leg making contact with Rafa’s, making the heat feel more like longing again, rather than fury. He wants to be even more daring. He wants to push it even further. To test what happens in this world of new rules, in this world out of order.

He doesn’t. Not yet.

“Don’t you want the throne, Nick?’ Rafa does, though. Rafa lets their legs nudge and throws him a gaze that almost makes his eyes look richer, deeper, Like before. Like he’s alive. And like he throws his challenges at him from across the court. 

“No,” Nick answers definite.

“Still hating tennis?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t want the throne, because it’s never been for the taking,” Nick thinks he’s marked with blood message for Rafa by now: _there was never anyone like you, and there never will be._

“But doesn’t the law go like this: the King is dead, long live the King?” Rafa is playing with his empty glass, his fingers busy with the rim of it, and Nick thinks about these fingers commanding the racket, he thinks about these fingers inside him commanding him. He soaks up the warmth of Rafa’s proximity, the buzz inside him not alcohol but chimeras induced.

“Not now. Maybe not ever,” and he confesses, looking straight into Rafa’s soul. “One more?” he indicates the drink with a nod of his head.

“Do you want to get me drunk, Nick?” Rafa smiles his teasing smile and again, it’s almost an image of before. Nick is too desperate to see the lacks.

“Maybe? Isn’t this what some people do when they mourn?”

“It depends on people. Some get drunk, others cry, some get angry, others fuck,” the sound rolls off Rafa’s tongue like a sensation and Nick’s leg jerks skimming against Rafa’s inner thigh, strong, steel, all muscles, like before. Nick doesn’t manage to gulp on beer fast enough to muffle the whimper.

“Which one are you, Rafa?” his voice is almost bruised with need.

“I didn’t try only one,” the tease on his face might be the very essence of what he used to be and Nick clings to it, with every particle of his being, like they went back in time, like everything was fixed.

Like the world didn’t end.

“Which one?” Nick thinks he’s leaning over the table, bringing his leg closer in between Rafa’s thighs. Almost as deep as he wants to. Almost there. Fuck.

And then Rafa puts his finger on his lips in a silencing gesture and it’s so erotic, it assaults Nick with thousand of images, makes him want to bend for Rafa however he wants to. Makes him want. Want so much. And he’s standing up, putting distance between them, to Nick almost rushing after the closeness, the feel of having his skin so close to his.

He doesn’t have to wait long, though. Rafa leaves the tip on the table, walks around it and leans to Nick, close enough for Nick to feel his cologne, to get drunk on it (or the curiosity of what’s beneath it, how does his skin smell like, how does his skin merged with Nick’s does?) and murmurs the name of the hotel and the number of the room he’s staying in.

A poignant invitation in a warm breath.

Nick clutches the edge of the table.

Rafa’s gone, but the words remain. Along with the feeling of desire, heavy, filling him up to the brink. He almost touches himself right there. But he doesn’t want to spoil it, yet.

He waits. Breathes in and out. The skin no longer taunt. Pleasantly warm. And he follows.

*

The media are only hungry for them when they matter, when they set the trends, when they command the crowds to fill up spaces on the arena. The media are only hungry for them when they are money making machines. When there’s coin in their blood and sweat, tears and roars.

They stopped writing about Nick a long time ago. From the future of tennis, to mad genius he became just a wasted talent, an echo of yesterday, dust of tomorrow.

And Rafa. The media clung for a long time to Rafa. To this glory shining so bright they couldn’t find it anywhere else. Because it was unique. It was the only one. Glory became legend and legend turned to myth, though. Last romantic of tennis, was only a memory. It hurt to remember, because when you did, you realized how empty the aftermath is. How his presence left absence that is felt. Felt so raw.

Inevitably then, Rafa Nadal became Rafael Nadal Parera and so, they forgot about the tennis player (they had to, to move on, after mourning comes acceptance) and eventually didn’t care about the person at all.

That’s why Nick gets to room number 476 not thinking about the media at all. About stirring scandal or attention. Not thinking about anything, but that murmur of invitation in his ear, guiding him here like bringing him home.

The knock on the door echoes, there’s anticipation in the sound and maybe foreboding, too. Like it was inevitable. Like it had to happen. Like he waited his whole life for it. The series of thuds hammer along with his heart.

Rafa opens and Nick tries to guess, was he waiting? Was he as eager. His face betrays nothing. He’s wearing a light grey sleeveless and black sweat pants. Nick tries to take in all at once, the familiar shape of his physique, the arms, the forearms, the broadness of his shoulders, thickness of his thighs. His throat goes dry, fuck, like time didn’t touch this at all, like time was not allowed to have this. No one is. You can’t touch divinity, can you?

Will he?

“Room service for one, sir?” Nick leans against the doorstep, tries to go for nonchalant and cheeky but ends up probably staring and adoring and wanting, wanting, wanting. Still bleeding out for Rafa.

“Careful. I might take you up on that offer, Nick? Do you want to end up on my silver platter?” Rafa doesn’t touch him. He lets him in, with a shadow of a taunting smile, from ages before. It’s there. But this smile _was_ taken by time, it _was_ stolen by it.

The room is bare. No tennis equipment, nothing betraying someone lives here. It’s a cold reminder of grief the tennis world goes through. It’s a cold reminder Rafa Nadal no longer is.

The emptiness of the room makes the placement of the bed only more distinctive. This place seems to be filled with it. Only with it. Naked evidence of what Nick came here for?

“Do you do this often? It sounds like you do,” Nick turns around to look at Rafa, leaning against the closed door and watching him with arms crossed on his chest. Body language casual and comfortable. Nick’s feels his palms getting sweaty and knees going weak. Fuck. That’s pathetic.

“ _This_? What do you think this is, Nick?” there’s an eyebrow rise and Nick now feels pinned to the spot. Completely.

“I don’t know,” he sounds way too vulnerable. Way too exposed. Even though he’s entirely for the taking. Waiting for Rafa to. “Anything. Everything you want.”

“Really?” he’s still so far away. And watches Nick. Just watches him. With that face he had across the net, during their matches. Almost beastly focus. Eyes peering deep. Eyes trapping him, binding him to his will. As if Nick wants to be anywhere else.

“Yeah,” he sighs, looking away, looking down, like bowing down already. To him. To the intensity of the feelings he kept inside for so long. “Fuck. Raf. It was so long. So fucking long,” he doesn’t finish. His voice is low and thick with emotion.

_I’ve wanted you so long. So fucking long._

Woven in between.

“I need you to say it, Nick. I need to you to tell me you trust me,” now he puts his hands in his pockets, but stands still so far away. The pull between them almost chokes Nick like a collar.

“Yes. Fuck, yes. I do. I trust you,” _to do everything you want with me_ , he might as well add with the way he already sounds wrecked.

“Then take off your clothes,” short, on point, concise. But the words feel like Rafa’s hands could on his skin. A butterfly touch. Trailing. Even if he only imagines. Even if he still yearns for the unreachable. His body is wired with them so he reaches for the hem of his Tshirt almost instantly (the fingers on his hipbones would slowly wander upwards, making him shiver), not tearing his eyes away from the way Rafa watches him (that’s what his eyes say).

“Do you want me to put on a show for you?” he already feels like peeled off layers so he escapes to the safe ways , to the known ways of provoking, of jesting. His hands might shake.

“You, naked, in my bed will be enough of a show, Nick.”

Fuck.

It goes straight to his cock. This confession confirmed in a way Rafa watches, waits, pose loose as he’s leaning against the door, but his expression focused, peering. So deep. Like how his hands could feel touching his hips, making him disrobe.

He does. First goes his shirt, then shoes, socks, pants. The more he reveals himself, the more he feels bound by Rafa’s gaze. Wrapped in it. The way he is w a t c h i n g. No longer hazy, disconnected. Pinning, keeping, holding him firmly against his body, against this desire that brims.

“Everything, Nick. I want to see everything.”

Fuck. Jesus. He twitches to that, that gravity of his body, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. He swallows loud, any snarky retorts he might have and slips his underwear, too. The feeling of standing there completely naked, for Rafa to trail every inch of him with his fever-filled eyes makes him strain, half hard, already getting wet and wanting, wanting, wanting.

God.

“Now, go and sit on the bed.”

Nick always hated the orders. He hated people with positions of power, telling him what to do, enforcing rules on him. Now, he’s pliant and willing. Now, he does what Rafa tells him without a second of thought. His body is bound by Rafa’s words. His body is Rafa’s to do whatever he wants with him. He doesn’t care. Does this make him cheap? Does this make him easy? He will take whatever Rafa spares to give him.

He will take _everything_.

The bed feels cold but the sheets under his skin are smooth and sensual. He thinks about rubbing against it, with Rafa watching, or with Rafa taking him violently from behind, and his cock meeting the velvety texture. Fuck. His hands grasp the covers as he’s leaning back.

“Yes. Open your legs, Nick.”

He does before he even hears the words. Exposed. Fucking sprawled on a silver platter, like Rafa predicted. Like he himself offered.

“Start touching yourself. Like you would. When you were thinking about me in the locker rooms, after our matches. When you were thinking about me, always,” Rafa practically purrs. It’s not overconfident. It’s not arrogant. It’s matter-of-factly. 

Because it is.

Nothing but the truth.

Nick moans to that. Remembers. Is not surprised at all. He always wondered how could anyone not see this. This want in him. Him bleeding out for Rafa on court, outside it. Always. This want filling him up to the tips of his toes, breaking his skin, making him furious, making him lash out to scream over it, to maybe pretend himself it’s not there, tearing him to pieces, fueling his obsession.

“Fuck, Raf. So long. So long I wanted you,” Nick mumbles, voice wrecked, hoarse as he clutches with one hand to silken sheets, the sensations enhanced, and with the other he starts caressing his chest, slow, downwards, playing with his nipples first, legs spreading wider, neck arching, lips parted to sigh, to grunt in effort. He’s not even on his cock yet but his body is taunt and heating up and ready, so fucking ready for Rafa to take everything with his eyes as if he would with his hands.

“How long? Tell me,” the voice sounds muffled, when his hand closes on his cock to pull on the head, he’s already so fucking wet for this, he fondles it and then glides down the shaft and up again, moving, ass grinding against the smooth surface of the bed, the muscles on his thighs shudder as he’s opening his body obscenely wide for Rafa to see everything. The moans coming from his mouth are loud and low and he should be embarrassed but he wants to make it good for Rafa. He wants to give him everything, everything he is and has, to be spent, to be claimed.

He is, anyway.

“Always. Fucking always.”

“What were you thinking about then? What did you want me to do to you then?” the voice comes to him like from behind the glass. There’s ringing in his ears, as he pumps his cock, makes the bed squeak obscenely, body bent in a bow, arching for Rafa.

“Fuck. Raf. What did I not want you to do to me? I wanted to go down on my knees for you to fuck my mouth. I wanted you fucking deep inside me. Wherever. Everywhere. In the shower. Against the wall. In my mouth. But fucking into me, too. I wanted you so deep with your body, with your cock, like you were anyway. Like you never went away. Inside me. But with your taste now. With your cum. Marking me. Like I’m yours. Like I am. Like I want you to do now. Fuck, please. Touch me,” he whines, and it’s wrecked and he’s reduced to purest want and doesn’t care anymore if he’s being a cheap fuck, if he’s being used, if he’s showing the entire vulnerability he has for Rafa. He’s taking everything from the moment, pleading for more to have, to remember, when it’s gone. When Rafa is. His feet are raised from the floor in a way his body’s arching in desperation. He’s wet and hard and biting on his lip from straining so much and then looks at Rafa and almost comes on the spot.

That expression remains. A fever. A focus. Want, too. And he’s not unaffected. Doesn’t touch himself, doesn’t do anything about it but to see his body respond, it almost does him in. He cries out Rafa’s name instead, like loud, outrageous confirmation _. I know you want me, too. I knew you did. Like I wanted you._

“Stop, Nick,” Rafa then commands and it only proves how much control over Nick he has, how much Nick is willing to give himself in, completely, when Nick does stop. Gasping, breathing hard, clutching to bed like he’s falling, into oblivion, into madness, into the place where there is nothing else grounding him but Rafa’s voice, Rafa’s eyes, Rafa’s presence.

He doesn’t even recognize his own voice, coming out of his throat in a series of fucking pathetic mewls. “Pleasepleaseplease.”

Nick’s coming down the high, overflowing, bursting, taunt but he does register Rafa moving. From the spot by the doors. Getting closer, this delivering presence, with his strong body, grounding, sheltering, getting Nick off. Hands. Large, warm palms. _Please._

Rafa’s shushing him. The feeling of his hand on Nick’s cheek works like healing balm. He doesn’t care for velvety sheets spread on the bed he’s been clutching to center himself. He leans to the texture of calloused palm that never felt more soothing instead. A divine instrument of mythological glory. A hand that has written an entire portion of tennis history. Scarred with so many victories, that demanded payment in the end. That stole his body from him. He leans to the touch with his head, chasing it, soaking it up and then violently bending backwards, when Rafa reaches for his cock with his other palm to fondle it playfully, like Nick dreams of, like Nick imagined, like he yearned for his entire life.

Fuck. Rafa’s touching him, jerking him off, his hand rough and large and perfect and Nick is rubbing himself indecently against it with desperation, still searching for his other palm to keep it close to his face, almost adoring.

“Hands off, Nick or I stop touching you. Keep your hands on the bed,” the order is sharp and the movement stops, now Rafa has only lazy strokes for him to which Nick practically sobs, the rhythm infuriating, stalling him from spilling himself all over Rafa. Marking him with himself. As a statement how much he belongs to him.

_His. His. His._

His hips move to the chant or a prayer and he opens wide, wider, feeling himself clench for more, so much more.

“I wanna touch you. Fuck. I want so much. I wanna feel you in my mouth, Raf. And then I want you to fuck me, please,” he doesn’t care how desperate he sounds. He cries the words. He never wanted anything more. It’s always been like this and now he can almost have this, taste this, feel this.

“Hush, Nick. This is not what this is about,” he resumes the caress of his hand on his face, with the other back to pumping his length, faster, firmer, perfect, his touch is everywhere, covering his wet cock, stroking his balls and Nick pines, Nick thinks about Rafa’s fingers reaching deep, into him, where he’s so open and loose and waiting for him. Waiting for him all his life. And with that he comes, he’s coming, he thinks he won’t stop. Mewling into Rafa’s hand on his cheek and clutching the surface of the bed to not fall off its edge in jerky motion of his body chasing the climax, wanting to move like this in Rafa’s palms, forever shaped by him. Remade by him. Claimed by him. 

He forgets about the words Rafa said. His mind feels soft, the ringing in his ears turns to pleasant, calming humming and his body is sweating out all the tension and desperation from before, going pliant under Rafa’s touch now.

And then Rafa’s fingers drenched with him, wet and wanting for Rafa before, go to his lips, part them, asking for permission and he’s allowing him in. Fuck. Of course he is. He slurps on the taste of himself like it’s ambrosia because it’s from Rafa’s skin. Where it was written with Nick’s cum: _I’m yours_. So he confirms it now with his tongue, opening up, sucking him in, like drinking the words back to himself, like he craves to drink Rafa, now hard and straining for him, because of him. He looks up, eyes hooded, like he’s soaring high, like he’s ready to have another go and before Rafa composes himself into same almost professional focus from across the net he sees the heat and longing in these amber eyes.

“Buen chico,” Rafa sounds throaty, which is a further proof of him remaining affected, making Nick twitch in need, like he’s not spent and inebriated on the sensations of having so much even if still wanting so much more. Like he wants to do this with Rafa over and over again. For him to never stop touching him, using him, having him like this. 

Rafa’s hand goes back to caressing Nick’s cheek. Nick chases it, insatiable, needy, absolutely vulnerable with feeling he’s been denying himself his entire tennis life.

“Fuck. Can I touch you? Raf, I need to touch you, please” his hands move in a shaky manner from clutching on the bed sheet to Rafa’s hips but Rafa stops him, putting distance between them, making Nick whimper out loud/ The sound loud, the sound almost deafening. Just like Nick’s want is.

“This is not an affair, Nick,” Rafa repeats or defines the words from before. “I’m married,” he continues, firmly, even though his finger is not marked by the trace of a wedding ring, as if he never wore it, not even after tennis, not even after Rafa Nadal with his hands taped, branded with glories of victories regressed? returned? grew back to? being Raphael Nadal Parera, that should have a ring on his finger shown proudly at fancy cocktail parties and charity events he attends to as a community role model and sports legend.

“Then what is it?” Nick lifts himself up, even though is legs are shaking, his knees are weak as he’s still buzzing with the aftermath of almost having everything he wanted his entire life.

“It doesn’t have to be anything at all,” Rafa is moving to a bedside table, to wipe the hand off Nick’s traces. He moves with intent, but Nick chooses to think he’s rushing away from a confrontation. Though watching him remove any evidence of Nick on his skin makes Nick bitter, makes Nick angry. He hopes the sheets will smell like him and the selfish desperation follows: will Rafa feel it, will Rafa get himself off on it? The image leaves him breathless. Fuck. He barely tapped to the volcano of his desire and now it’s pouring out of him uncontrollably. It aches in his very bones.

“Really? You’re telling me you won’t be thinking about me, naked, sprawled on your bed, fucking my own hand, spilling myself all over your silky sheets, loose, warm, wet and ready for the taking, ready for you to fuck me over and over again, like we could go for hours, like before, on court, like it was never enough, because I will never not want you?” Nick walks to Rafa, naked, shining with sweat, doesn’t bother with clothes scattered on the floor and stands behind Rafa, close enough to feel him, not close enough to crowd him.

“Not much changed. You still talk big and you still hide with yourself,” Rafa is facing him, like he always did on court, like he was always unafraid to. Confidence shaping his face, readiness to squash Nick’s challenge shimmering in his eyes.

Nick goes back to being an open wound for him. Like nothing really changed. Like all these years of not having this, this contradiction, this demand, this clarity did not happen.

“I’m not hiding with anything, Raf. I just showed you everything. It’s not about me. It’s about you. What are you hiding with?” Nick peers into these eyes, falls into this brown warmth but Rafa’s not there. He’s behind the wall of isolation, not letting anyone in. Not even his wife. Not even his family, apparently.

“You have matches to prepare and I have a shower to take,” Rafa deflects Nick’s trap, the same way he always knew how to on court and tries to go past him in the direction of a bathroom but Nick was never not daring, Nick was never not brazen, so he touches his arm to stop him and ask in an intimate whisper, like they’ve been doing this for a while. Like they are lovers and he confirms the next time they see each other like that.

“Will you be watching?”

It takes him some time to answer. He’s trailing Nick’s skin with his eyes, slowly, like butterfly touches of his fingers before he reciprocates Nick’s pleading gaze and answers orpledges. “Like I was tonight.”

And leaves Nick with perched throat, clammy hands bleeding out, out and out.

Later on, in his room, under shower, he uses his fingers, remembering Rafa’s eyes, haunting him, setting him on fire, reminding him all the _whys, what fors_ and _hows_.

Like he knows himself again.

*

He goes through First Round like he’s been born to win slams, thinking about these eyes, thinking about the fire and purpose in him rekindled. Loveless marriage becomes strange intimacy of quick fucks again, remembering passion from before, remembering the reasons from the beginning. Hollow routine of “oh, it’s you again” becomes hungry “when can I see you again.” Like being sweethearts again. Like thinking the whole world belongs to you and there will never be anyone like this.

He gives his all on court like he did in Rafa’s bed. Wondering how much he can see from the stands. Body moving in strength and grace, for him to see, to feast on it. The adrenaline runs hot inside him, muscles made of steel. He’s taunting and arrogant. Attitude of a man who knows why he came here. Bursting confidence. Arrogance even. He makes errors, but he compensates for them with flourish and style. He reminds them all about the flavor and spice and colours they’ve been missing, consumed by the chase after legendary in patterns, rules, parallels and poor imitations. He’s vocal, he doesn’t let them look away. Like he did with Rafa. Putting on a show.

_This is for you. So that you could never think about anything else. So that this becomes the very core of everything you do and are_. Like it is with Nick.

He wins, edges the crowd with his gestures and flaunts with his body, a triumphant gladiator on the arena, offering himself for entertainment, _for you shall never have such another, peasants_.

He’s stretched too tight. And bleeding with want again.

He jerks himself almost furiously under showers, fueled with the feeling of win, but mostly with desperate need for Rafa to see, to watch him and know how it’s all for him. He comes embarrassingly quick, half hard the entire match, as he bites on his fist, loud, wrecked shout trapped in his throat loaded with this name, loaded with this eternal confession: _yours._

Later that day he sees him. Near one of the surrounding cafes. He’s taking pictures with the kids and signing their tennis balls. He would be practically encompassed by crowds of excited children and adults alike back in the days. Trying to touch him, trying to confirm he’s real, to tell later on they were in the presence of divine and he felt warm, and human and unlike anything you will ever experience before, yet , somehow so familiar. Now, there are a few fans scattered here and there, like most of them have forgotten. Like most of them were born in the era when Rafa Nadal, the greatest of all time was only a myth of the past. Like most of them did not see him perform miracles, but barely heard about them. Like most of them thought of him as mortal and ordinary. Rafa lets them, he lets them close and he lets them think like that. In a way he poses, without conviction, in a way he smiles, without eagerness and joy, in a way he performs courtesy like it’s programmed not coming from his heart.

Until the media wrote about him, Nick read it, he read it all. Rafa taught in the Academy for a while, but soon withdrew to the paper work only, organizing charity events, inviting current young stars of tennis to do charity events, to train the kids (it used to be the only reason for Nick to try in any way to stay up ahead, to matter, to maybe be this way on the radar, to maybe be this way worthy to be invited). Rafa got himself behind the scenes, an office man, rather than a doer, rather than the center of attention, the very star of the galaxy. He’s become dark matter on the outskirts of his own creation Understandably, grieving his own tennis. Understandably, aching for it. (The same way the world was grieving and aching for him for a while. Nick never really stopped.)

But kids never paid the price for it.

Until now, apparently.

The distance was there The stiffness. The same way he was hiding behind the wall of isolation with Nick laying bare for him. Now he too put on a smile, a masquerade, replaying something learned by heart, not real.

They never had children with Maria. The media stopped writing about the reasons why. Because they stopped writing at all. Nick wondered was that a choice? Or was this sacrifice? Or was this fate’s cruel finality, a terrible sort of an epilogue for Rafael Nadal Parera, who never really allowed himself to be this, to have this, to want this and once he could, the fate denied it to him?

Ordinary life. Being a family. Knowing how to be, who to be outside tennis.

Rafa catches Nick’s wistful gaze. It’s a moment between them, no one will notice but them. It still works like gravity. Like a call. Nick’s body pulled in the direction of this star, that always shines the brightest for him. Nick’s entire being bound by him.

Wild horses couldn’t drag him away. So before the day ends he does follow the call and he’s back by that door, taunt, hungry, eager and ready for more.

More.

For everything he can have.

@

Nick stops mid-step, seeing Rafa sitting on the bed, with tennis racket on his lap, and half of the strings removed.

This place was cold and empty. Clean cut. Before. Like no one lived here. Like a person staying here was cod and empty.

To see tennis racket now in Rafa’s hands, like the past made its claim on him. As he repressed it, tried to forget it, or pretended it didn’t happen? (Like Nick often did with tennis, too, for different reasons, for having it suffocate him rather than be taken away from him). To see these hands, made to hold it, to wield it but to caress it, too, makes Nick choke on the memories. Makes Nick remember everything and realise the gravity of the absence.

“How much do you miss it?” Nick dares to ask, Nick dares to assume he’s going to get an answer.

Rafa doesn’t look up from the task he’s engrossed in. His moves methodical, like he never really forgot, like you could probably wake him up in the middle of the night and his body would have all the muscle memory, filled with tennis and all tennis things.

Nick watches these fingers, no longer taped, but wearing all the scars of his previous battle for glory, fingers he yearns for at night, fingers he sucked on, tasted, covered in him, fingers that marked him on the outside and inside as belonging, as remade, as whole. He watches these fingers pull with force but trail with delicacy, too and his skin sings. The shimmer of warmth is now the pool of heat at the pit of his belly. He clenches his hands, struggling not to strip himself right here and there.

Like a needy, pathetic, easy slut for scraps he became.

“I told you, Nick. We’re not here for this,” he stands, keeping the strings in his hand and putting the racket away. The image of it, dismantled and incomplete, is wrong and makes Nick furious for a moment. But the arousal wins. Because Rafa is watching him now. Pinning him to the spot, again. Biding him to his will. And Nick’s entire body, every inch of it, screams, _yes. Fuck, yes._

“Where do you want me?” he swallows on the words. But it’s bold of him, again. To say it out loud like that, that Rafa _does_ want him. His face is focus, his body strong and broad, but the way he moves. Stalking, like he did on court. A bull stomping with grace to claim you.

He’s behind Nick now. Nick’s pinned and willing and anticipating. Ready. So fucking ready. For everything. For anything.

“Take off your shirt, your shoes, your socks. But leave the pants on,” the orders are short, like before and Nick follows them instantly, like before, too. Gravity. Being bound to him. Rafa’s closeness is pleasantly warm, but he doesn’t touch him, not yet. Not before there are patches of goldenhoneychestnut skin to have for his own.

Rafa’s fingers, yes, rough, yes, scarred, yes, parchment of history, just like Nick wanted to remember, just like Nick dreamed of, trail the path downwards Nick’s spine, making him arch, making him purr, making him move on strings of Rafa’s creation.

His hands, the same hands, that were wielding and caressing the racket, now go to Nick’s hips, pulling him closer, making Nick feel the truth. Rafa _does_ want him. Rafa is bound by this gravity, too.

“Fuck,” Nick sighs, like there’s something stuck in his throat. He moves instinctively, seeking the warm, hard sensation. Of Rafa’s cock angled in a way it fits so well to Nick’s ass. Like they’ve been made for each other like this. Like they’ve been made for each other on the opposite sides of the net, to clash for victory, but also like they’ve been made for each other for skin to meet skin, for body to claim body.

To fuck.

“Yeah,” he’s purring now. So fucking eager and rubbing himself against Rafa. Needing so much to feel him want. Want Nick like the only confirmation, like the only real thing, like the anchor of purpose and reality. The same way Nick wants Rafa.

“Stop,” the hands travel to Nick’s stomach to pause him. Nick soaks up their presence on taunt muscles of his abdomen, yearning to have them lower, right where his cock is straining for attention. But this is enough.

He’s a greedy slut, sated with scraps, after all.

Ready to be shaped into whatever’s Rafa’s making. 

“Do you trust me?” the breath on his earlobe already feels like reassurance and the realisation follows, that yes, he does. He trusts Rafa with his life, with his tennis, with his entire purpose. And it’s kind of terrifying how a very defining piece of him trusts Rafa to do whatever he wants with him, because he already belongs to him, anyway.

“Yeah. Yes. Completely,” so he confesses, simple. Undisputable. The only truth about life.

There’s stillness to them, then. As if they are holding. Rafa stays behind Nick, his body sheltering him from behind and Nick leans to it, like wanting to melt with it. Nick’s hands end on Rafa’s forearms, now. And they are almost an image of intimate lovers, that have been close like this for a while.

Rafa takes Nick’s palms into his (like a lover would), weaves their fingers (like a lover would know how) and pulls them behind Nick, with strings now back in his grip, being put to a good use (intimacy turned to control).

As if it’s needed. As if Nick’s not bound in any way possible.

He ties them up by a wrist and murmurs to the center of Nick’s back. “If you’re past your limits, you tell me, Nick,” the shadow of his mouth almost caressing there.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Nick sounds shaken, more by the gentleness. Being tied, with strings digging into his skin pleasantly, gets him practically fully hard. He needs friction so much, and they haven’t even started yet.

Jesus. He’s nothing but want for Rafa.

Again.

“I’m serious,” Rafa persists, mouth now on Nick’s nape, absolutely disarming. More brutal than any hits could have been. Shattering him to pieces.

“I am too,” Nick chuckles and then goes the first slap, even if he’s wearing shorts, and it’s through a material, Nick’s blood shoots straight to his cock, and the sound he makes is him choking on a whimper around Rafa’s name blurred with, _more, more more._

“Fuck. Jesus,” that’s all he’s capable of saying.

“I need to hear you say it,” Rafa’s hand stays on Nick’s ass and this, and hearing the combination of words coming from his warm mouth on his skin ( _I need you, I need you, I need you)_ makes it almost impossible to compose himself enough to.

“I will. I will tell you when it’s enough,” he thinks he doesn’t sound convincing, not only because his voice is breaking, with Rafa’s palm massaging his buttocks and the other one going to the hem of his shorts. He knows, too, he will never have enough of this. Of anything Rafa has to spare.

But Rafa believes him (or is as eager to do this) and starts pulling the shorts down slowly, until they are falling and Nick steps out of them in a rush, desperately wanting to be naked, absolutely bare for Rafa to take everything, everything he wants.

It’s a progress, too. Of breaking the walls. Or creating cracks on them. There’s contact now. There’s skin on skin. Almost. 

Rafa’s moving them towards the bed, close behind, hard against Nick’s bare ass, keeping Nick’s hands in his grip. The closeness is there, but it’s controlled, carefully manufactured. Still. Still. Nick wants to feel more of it, Rafa’s cock right where it belongs, he wants to rub himself against the hardness under the material of Rafa’s sweatpants, rut like he’s in heat. He is. He always is for him.

He doesn’t manage, because there comes new demands as they get to the edge of the bed.

“Lie on the bed, on all fours. Hands up front and ass up.”

Fuck. The touch of Rafa’s silky sheets has gotten familiar by that point so when his skin gets into contact with it, he’s flooded with the memories of before and the combination of his oversensitivity and cool delicacy makes him overflow. He settles himself in a position, in which there’s no friction for his wet, hard cock and the way he feels exposed and bare and open for Rafa makes his skin shudder in hunger for completion.

“Spread your legs, now. Let me see you,” Rafa commands and Nick does, like at the pull of the strings, keeping himself up, face flat on the bed, in between his bound hands, knowing Rafa’s watching, looking at his ass, exposed, clenching on emptiness, needing him, needing him close, deep, under this taunt skin, to never leave.

It almost breaks him.

Fuck.

He thinks he can come without being touched at all. This realisation of being laid bare for Rafa, fills him up to the brink. A prelude to how Rafa’s cock could feel like. He’s leaking precum all over the sheets and it’s obscene, the stains will stay there, a reminder, a whole chapter written, of them being this, doing this, of Rafa claiming his body, of Rafa reminding him who he belongs to over and over again. Rafa sleeps in this bed, under these covers, wrapped in a smell and feel of Nick giving himself in to him entirely.

And then there’s movement, the mattress dips under Rafa’s weight and Rafa’s settling himself down next to Nick, with his hand running down Nick’s back, for him to bend and arch to it like a clay under the modeling ministrations.

“You feel strong. You feel like you almost put effort into training. Into trying. But you don’t, do you, Nick?” and the slap follows, now Rafa’s strong hand making contact with bare skin and Nick shudders, his body betraying him completely, thrusting eagerly for more. It stings but then it spreads, like more layers of him are being claimed, his cock jerks, spurting more liquid. He’s now painting that detailed, raw picture on Rafa’s sheets of them, like this. Fuck.

“I’ve won, today. I rolled over Sinner,” Nick says, voice heavy, words lost among pants. The strings on his wrists scratching, the feel of cool smoothness underneath balancing it out and he’s straining, he’s hard but Rafa lifts his hip up even more, preventing him from finding any semblance of friction. He’s now settled behind Nick, his material-covered thighs touching Nick’s calves. Nick leans closer. Gravity.

“You’re arrogant and overconfident. You lose focus often and try to fix it with flashy, unnecessary shots, Nick,” the slap feels stronger now, with changed angle. Nick hisses and moans, thrusting for more of it, anything. Anything. He’s leaking and needy and desperate and now, Rafa’s fingers stroke the taunt skin of his ass cheeks soothingly and he thinks about him inside, buried deep inside him, with his fingers, then with his cock.

He’s going to bleed out in need.

“You saw me. You watched. I was hard, thinking about it. And I felt I could take on anyone,” he’s rocking his body under Rafa’s hands, obscenely lifting his ass up, wanting to feel him so much more. He clenches and he yearns.

“So desperate. So needy. Just like you are on court, Nick. Without me there, you wouldn’t even care. Just like here. You would let me do everything to you, si? What if I used stringed racket on you, Nick?” the slapping is irregular, in between the words now and interrupted by Nick’s shapeless mewls. And he’s wriggling for more. He’s fucking famished. He knows nothing but this all-consuming need for Rafa.

“Fuck, please, anything. I need, fuck, so much,” he’s barely coherent, taking the strikes with muffled sound of sobs as he’s biting on the sheets or on the skin of his own forearms, feeling the climax build, but greedy for something more, for Rafa fucking into him when he comes all over the fancy bedding, a work of art left there for everyone to know: _I am his. Claimed by him. Fucked be him. Wanted by him._

“Would you care then? Would you stay consistent then? If I used racket on you and then when you’re sore, red and can’t feel it anymore, I would fuck you raw and you would come untouched,” Rafa’s grabbing his balls now, the grip is iron, preventing him to find release and Nick screams into the pillow, as it’s soaking up with his spit and sweat. There are tears on his face, too. He can taste the salt and maybe something metallic. Maybe he’s been biting on his mouth, too. Maybe he’s been really bleeding out for Rafa. The scream for Rafa, Rafa only, tearing away from him like the last sound on Earth, delivering him and condemning him.

“Yes. Yes, I would. I only care about tennis when you’re there. Raf, please,’ it sounds like a confession. Like something way more intimate than Nick begging for him to fill him up. Not only physically. It sounds like Rafa is Nick’s only anchor. Always. All the time.

The silence that follows, interrupted only by small, whimpering noises Nick is releasing into the material of the bed, breathing loudly, brought to the edge and held there in torturous but delicious prolonging (he doesn’t want it to be over, God, he wants them to stay like this forever, but he needs to come so badly, it hurts, it hurts him in his bones, just like thinking about Rafa does, just like chasing Rafa always did) settles loud and uncomfortable, like an echo of an explosion.

Rafa’s moving, maybe a response to the words, maybe gravity of bodies, to bring himself closer, behind Nick. He reaches for Nick’s cock now, a slow, sensual movement, gliding from his balls to the shaft, to pull on it, surprisingly gentle, maybe loving. Nick cries to that and moves with electricity running underneath Rafa’s fingers, charging him to act desperate, to plead for more. Rafa’s gathering the wetness from the head onto his fingers to travel back to Nick’s ass now, his other (large, securing, sheltering, guiding) hand on Nick’s hip, hopefully leaving bruises that will match those forming on his wrists.

Yes. God. Yes. This is what he aches for. To have him inside. To feel him there. He opens his legs even wider, fuck, he’s so pliant and lewd about his longings, he should feel embarrassed. He’s sprawled there, like a 3course meal, offering himself for Rafa’s fingers, needing this like he never needed anything in his life. Needing this to stay sane, to be whole, to exist.

And Rafa’s there, slipping in, bit by bit, one finger, then another, the hand on Nick’s hip helping him to steady shaky, unstable, jerky movements of his body meeting this blessing, meeting building release. He’s moaning so loud, doesn’t care how pornographic he sounds. It’s raw. It’s true. It’s him crying for Rafa, it’s him bleeding out out loud. He’s clenching on the digits, sucking him in, trying to devour him and keep him there forever, maybe. The mess on the sheets is sticky and wet and it only turns him on more, the realisation of leaving marks of his presence there, for Rafa to feel, to know, to jerk himself off, thinking about this. Thinking about fingering Nick to orgasm, cock untouched. There are words, incoherent, curses and blasphemy he’s moaning and among them Rafa’s name, the only sane thing, the anchor. The crux.

“How much can you take, Nick? So good, so loose, so warm. You’re taking me so good, querido,” Rafa sounds hoarse, like he’s affected. There’s gentleness to the endearment that makes the heat rising inside Nick flutter. And more tears to trail down his face. And then, with the third finger spreading him so wide, and with Rafa’s voice warm on his earlobe.”Do you think you could take my entire hand?” he’s coming, spilling himself dry, of everything, of his essence, his soul, his entire life, laid here for Rafa to take, to have, to consume, to destroy.

There’s a moment, before Rafa pulls out and Nick is lying there, half conscious, where they are so close, Rafa bent over, nuzzling Nick’s sweaty hair with his hand and Nick going through aftershocks, that it really feels like they have been lovers and they have been doing this for a while now. Nick purrs, like he would in the morning after, in that life they could have like this, maybe, fuck, turns his head to catch Rafa’s hand with his mouth, to steal the taste of skin before Rafa withdraws abruptly, as he does, the moment he senses Nick’s affection. And then he says, all drunken smile and brain fluffy. “Give me a minute or two, Raf, and let’s find out.”

“You should take this attitude on court,” Rafa says, turning him over, sticky, wet mess spreads on Nick’s skin now and makes him feel perversely satisfied. Like a tattoo of their doing, that will match the bruises nicely. And then he’s untying the strings from his wrists, bringing himself closer, so that Nick tries to catch his mouth, and his chin and his cheeks with his lips, partially successful. “Should I keep you in those, then?” Rafa smiles and it’s teasing, as he takes the ties off, stroking the skin on Nick’s wrist, the markings red and angry, pleasantly stinging, an echo of Rafa inside him and all over him.

“Hmm, this cardio I could do every day. That’s my kind of training,” he’s made of seated completion now, eyes half closed. This place, on Rafa’s bed, by his side, so familiar he thinks he doesn’t want to leave. He thinks he could stay, today, tomorrow, forever. Rafa’s holding his wrists now, kissing the chaffed surface and Nick opens his eyes wide, to soak it up, this image of almost-lovers attention he’s been receiving. Rafa’s mouth adoring his skin apologetically.

“What the fuck?” he asks, trying to move his hands, trying to rub Rafa’s thinning hair, his stubble-covered cheek, his (beloved) face. But Rafa lets him go and leans away from Nick’s caress.

“You’re still a spoiled brat, are you?” the physical absence growing between them hurts Nick more than anything they did tonight. It’s like tearing something physically away from his body, the shadows of Rafa’s touches cooling down on his skin, inside him, like they never happened.

“And you’re incorrigible, are you?” Nick lifts himself up to chase this broad, warm presence, as Rafa turns his back towards him to sit on the edge of the bed, hastily wrapping himself up in these thick walls he’s built. “Did you come?” his hand wonders to Rafa’s shoulder but gets shaken off it instantly. The walls thick and unreachable.

Nick asks the question like he’s asking about Rafa wanting him, really. Wanting him in return. And not knowing. Even if he is still craving all the scraps. On his knees. Desperate.

“I told you, Nick. This isn’t about it.”

“Is this about your wife? You won’t let me make you come, because of your wife?” Nick risks asking. He will take what he can, what Rafa will give him, bleeding out willingly. But it’s not only about sex. It’s about Rafa showing him glimpses of this brimming with control and confidence and skills man he used to be just to scatter himself into pieces and echoes of that before. It’s like having him here, within Nick’s reach, almost in his hands, like he’s always wanted, like he’s always dreamed of, but not. Not really. It’s like having all these new guys win Roland Garros and crown themselves kings, when all they remain are imposters.

“No. It’s not about Mery,” the softness around her name in Rafa’s voice stirs something sore, violent and envious inside Nick. She has him. She knows how to get behind the walls. She keeps him within her reach. Or does she? He’s still not wearing the ring and he still lets Nick come to his room. “I’m going to take a shower and you have a match to win.”

Rafa’s leaving, again. Going, in the direction of the bathroom. The cycle continues and Nick doesn’t even feel trapped inside it, because he will come back, begging for more anyway. Even if it sounds like Rafa is saying, he will wash all the traces of Nick from himself. Cleansing himself. Still, there’s faith in Rafa’s voice, in his statement. 

Like Rafa has that confidence in him. Like he will be watching again.

“I will be thinking about you covered in me in that bed, Raf,” Nick throws after him, thinking about the sheets drenched in his sweat and his sperm and his split and Rafa lying in these layers of Nick’s desperation, ache and desire and Rafa coming in reciprocation of it all.

*

He does win. He continues to win. It’s effortless. There’s fire burning bright inside him now, Rafa is holding the matches, as he glides on red dirt to completion, thinking about Rafa seeing him, dare to take this throne. To barge the walls, to storm his castle and to reveal him for himself. To have him as himself.

Tennis doesn’t feel like routine. It feels like the purpose, to conquer the kingdom, to get to the king, to win the king? But mostly to make him proud, to have him for who he is, not who he pretends to be.

The red dirt is the arena and he’s a fearless, undefeated gladiator, paying tribute to his emperor, bowing down for him. Collecting scalps to lie at his feet in adoration.

The cycle repeats, too. He goes to the emperor’s chambers, hoping, yearning, bleeding out and Rafa has him come undone without taking off his own clothes, with minimal skin on skin contact, bearing Nick off layers, instead and feasting on his vulnerability, and his devotion, and his eagerness.

He gets him off in front of the mirror in the bathroom, caging him in his strong arms (close, not close enough, with his hard cock pocking on his ass again, tortuous almost). Making him watch, making him watch bend himself for Rafa, give in to him, licking on his hand afterwards, licking on his own taste like eating from Rafa’s palms, Rafa not quick enough to hide heat in his eyes, mouth parting, hungry to share the taste maybe.

“Don’t you want to know how I taste on your mouth, Raf?’ he practically coos, turning around, trying to coax Rafa into more, (they never kissed, Nick has to know how it feels) a greedy beggar, that’s who he is. Rafa puts his come-covered fingers on his mouth, to leave more traces of Nick spent and owned and his, and repeats the same thing over and over again. “It’s not like that.”

Because it’s not about intimacy? Because it’s not about connection. Because it’s not about them kissing.

It’s about denying. It’s about control. And Nick leaving to his room, with appetite never entirely sated. With want always at the pit of his stomach, driving him to fierce tennis, but driving him to ache for Rafa more.

Rafa’s fingered him on every available surface, too. Nick’s spread wide and open and Rafa fitting there, deep inside him, so well, his fingers, marked by battles he wedged. Nick loves the feeling, Rafa’s hands are divine, the instruments of genius, and he wants to be modeled under them, he wants to be owned by them. “You promised me a hand,” still he whines, demanding, rocking against four fingers, taken from behind on the dining table now. He wants his cock, really, but the scraps he’s been getting will do. He’s shameless, he’s aching, he’s awakened this hunger for Rafa and it consumes him, consumes his dignity, consumes his decency, and leaves nothing but pure want for more. Never getting it entirely.

“You’re not calling the shots, querido,” Rafa lets him feel himself, hard, affected, wanting too. Lets him feel his cock through a material of his pants, pulls out his fingers and rubs himself against Nick’s cleft, loose, finger-fucked, begging for Rafa, the closest Nick will have him like this. They even move together, no longer Nick rubbing himself like a needy whore for this. Because he is. Always. Rafa rams into him, like he could, skin on skin, like he did on court with his violent shots. And with his hand slapping Nick, once, twice, thrusts following, Nick ends up spilling all over the surface of the table, his nails grazing the wood, clutching to something solid, anything, as he’s falling into oblivion, into this madness for Rafa.

He’s marked Rafa’s entire room with himself. Except for that skin he dreams of every night, in the aftermath.

The night before the French Open quarterfinals, Nick’s bound to the bed by a grip tape. Naked, on display.

Rafa’s room is still mostly empty, but whenever Nick walks on him with tennis equipment there’s a whole different emptiness opening up inside him, begging to be filled, yearning after memories. It’s been 5 years since they played tennis together and it leaves him with air knocked out of his lungs more than coming on Rafa’s fingers do.

Maybe. Possibly.

Or maybe it’s blurred with them. Maybe their tennis was always them almost fucking, Nick wanting Rafa to claim him, Rafa eager to chase the challenge.

It was ages ago. And nothing could quite compare to this. Not even this. Lying naked, Rafa watching him like taking him apart bit by bit. Because in the end, Rafa pes dinot chase him here. In bed. Nick does. And Rafa does not claim him here, either. Because Nick’s always left wanting more.

Greedy beggar, needy whore.

“I am not touching you tonight. You are not touching yourself, either,” Rafa says, mirroring his own pose from the beginning, leaning against the door, nonchalant and casually uncaring. Assessing a specimen for him to examine, to pick apart.

Is that what Nick is.

“Sounds like fun. Not,” Nick grunts, lying. Because the feeling of velvety sheets, familiar and addictive tingles his skin with buzz and he’s already aroused, spread wide there for the taking. Fuck. If only. “You’re pretty full of yourself, thinking I’m coming just from the sound of your voice, Raf.”

“You would know something about it, would you, Nick?” Rafa sounds playful and Nick aches for that, too. Because they might be bickering, like they’ve been in a relationship, like there’s familiarity and comfort between them. Like Nick ever had him. Like Rafa was ever his. Like Nick got behind the walls, the way Mery did, and he knows, and he has this life with him, and he’s complete.

“Then come here and teach me. You can even keep my mouth busy, shut me up nicely,” Nick purrs, knowing he won’t get it. Knowing Rafa will deny it to him, like he always does. Playing his game of command and control. Pulling Nick’s strings effortlessly.

“No. I want you to use your words. It’s with words that you will come, Nick,” Rafa states firmly, like commenting an inevitable fact of nature. Maybe he is. Maybe Nick’s wired to him in a way that Rafa can bend him and broke him and shape him into the creation of his fancy. “Do you remember our matches?”

“Fuck. Of course, I do,” Nick replies instantly, offended. He doesn’t think about tennis when he’s not on tour. He struggles not to think about it on tour, too. Tennis is an iron weight on his brain, with few points in between that are bright and feel light in his chest. And make his heart beat loud, hammer with passion he only seems to be having for his work with kids. “I remember them all. I think I remember every point I played with you, Raf,” it sounds loaded, like a confession. Like they are not talking about tennis or like tennis with Rafa is something so much more. Defining Nick’s purpose in life, maybe.

“Tell me. Tell me how did it feel?” he looks untouched, peering into Nick from the distance, though, magnetic and powerful, like he always was on court, pleasant whirring under Nick’s skin feels like echo of the past. When Rafa’s fiery gaze awakened him from slumber to fight, to chase, to offer himself, and repeat. With his game. With his commitment. With his passion rekindled.

“Like I wanna be there, forever. Play you, forever. Enrage you, provoke you, make you break the routine and show so much more. Like I wanna hear you roar for me, chase me with that anger, with that curiosity. Like I wanna let you have me there, with your massive shots that felt like you pounding into me and, fuck, I wanted to give in, but I wanted it to last longer, so I would break you in return and make you chase me again and again and again. And so it would start all over again. And you had me, pinned again and I wanted to bend and give it to you, but then I never knew when there’s another chance, so I escaped your grip, you pushing me against the court with your forehands, with your rallies, bending me and almost having me. Fuck. I always thought of it like this. Half hard and buzzing with want. And still playing, still wanting to, loving it. And then I would jerk myself off under showers, think about you coming in and finishing what you’d started on court. Fucking me raw and dry there so that I could feel you in my sore muscles and so that I could remember your cock in me afterwards,” Nick remembers it all vividly, he never forgets. And tennis with Rafa and thinking of Rafa inside him (with his body, with his presence) was never a separate thing for Nick. Fuck. That’s revealing. That’s exposing. More than him lying here now, bound to Rafa’s bed, cock getting harder and harder without friction, without touch, at just the memories of their game. And Rafa is watching, like he knows, like he understands, like this is how it felt for him too. “And you? Was it like that for you, too?” he sounds small, pleading. Clinging to this hope, about Rafa wanting him in return, suddenly realizing how his entire memory of tennis, how large chunk of his life (because even after everything tennis was that, and tennis with Rafa even more) depends on that.

“I always played the ball. The racket. The game, strategy. Not a person. That was my focus. Not seeing the opponent, but their game. Never making anything personal. You get easily distracted, you lose, because you feel too much, not think, like you should. When you make it personal. It was different with you. Always. There was a ball and a racket. So much power, and fire and it felt equal, you meeting my force with the same one. I had to chase someone, not the other way round. And I wanted to. God. I needed to have you, pinned, claimed, submitting, under my heels. But there was you, too. You were red. All red, Nick. And all I could think about was chasing you. And it was always personal. It was rage, it was wonder, it was curious, it was want. I wanted to have you. Defeated but mine. I wanted to go to you, have you all in clay, smear it on you and fuck you like that, like you’re my trophy,” Nick’s breathing hard, Rafa’s words like strokes on his cock, like thrusts of him inside him, and Rafa is touching himself, when talking. Fuck. He’s palming himself over his sweatpants, rubbing his cock lazily, with words on his mouth about wanting Nick, the same way Nick always wanted him back. His voice is hoarse and straining, but he continues, slowly bringing himself off and making Nick struggle to move on a bed, thinking about skin on skin, instead of cold sheets and empty air. “Tennis was something else for me. Not this. Not this want for a person. But with you, it blurred. And when I lost to you, I wanted to go there and show you it’s not over, we’re not done. Fuck your mouth, so that you could only mewl my name, swallowing every drop, hermoso. And then, when I won, I wanted to go to you and take you off court, too. Fuck you, long and hard, so you remember, the next day, feeling me in your muscles, feeling me inside you, nene.”

Nick hurts. His entire body does. Taunt, ready for the release, but it doesn’t come. It won’t come. He’s whimpering, something that sounds like a litany of Rafa’s name. And begs. Moves feverishly on the bed, seeking something, anything, as the tape stops him from finding it. Rafa stops touching himself and starts walking in his direction, bringing hope, bringing relief, bringing release, Nick prays, Nick yearns.

A dip of the bed feels like one already. Rafa’s close, there’s warmth of his body, hard and ready, too. Skin on skin, it would take so little.

_Please. Fuck. Please._

The words stay inside but the tears flow, which Rafa gathers onto his fingers, caressing Nick’s face like he did his wrists before. Like a lover would. Like there’s affection there. Like there’s desire to put him back together, not only pick him apart. Nick nuzzles the palm, tries to kiss it, seeking this softness (they could be this, too, fuck) but skin, too (even if only like this). But Rafa takes it away. (God gives and God takes away, it echoes inside Nick, it feels like it, like he’s that much on the edge).

He licks on his fingers covered in saltiness of Nick’s tears. A symbolic image. Rafa consuming Nick’s ache, Rafa gorging on it, Rafa growing in power through Nick’s desperation.

Is that it? Is this what they are?

“This. How does it feel, Nick? To have me so close. I think about going down on you, now. I want that. Fuck, I want that, too. Don’t think I don’t. I want to suck you, I want you to come down my throat and then, hmm,” Rafa hums to himself, as he goes back to touching himself through his trousers, lazily, as if he has all the time in the world and Nick’s covered in needless, the itchiness that suffocates him, nothing but sobs in his throat, burning. He’s reduced to nothing but that encompassing ache for Rafa. Nothing can ever fulfill. Not even Rafa being so close, hard, warm, wanting, but still outside Nick’s reach. It hurts, in his chest, on his skin. It hurts and he thinks nothing was ever more cruel than this. Rafa’s leaning, to continue close to Nick’s face, covered in tears, full of rawest pain of wanting. “Should I come all over you or inside you, muñequita?” and Nick does find release at that. Semblance of it. Thrusting into emptiness, the coldness of air poignant. Some part of him spurts all over his stomach, but so much unfulfilled, pent up ache inside him remains. He’s gasping in shuddery breaths, wetness on his face humiliating and making him feel laid even more bare than he is every night with his body in Rafa’s room.

Rafa’s making hushing sounds, reaching for Nick’s hands to release him from the bonds, his fingers cruel because stroking him in aftercare, making the tears swell more in Nick’s eyes. Fuck.

“I’m not even your cheap fuck. I’m not even this. You don’t fuck me. You don’t want to. What am I? What are you punishing me for?” he needs to say it. He needs to ask. Even if the words are helpless, vulnerable and pathetic. Like he’s negotiating attention. Reciprocation.

Rafa releases him. From the bounds, not from the asphyxiating need to have and to know and they are back to square one. Rafa with his back turned, on the edge of the bed, feeling miles away, behind the walls and Nick on the outside, still trying to climb the fortress, to get inside, to know.

“It was always an open arrangement, Nick. And we can always stop. I asked you and you said you understand this.”

“I don’t think we can stop,” Nick should be tired, should be fucking done by this point of feeling wet and sweaty and sticky and naked (laid bare and exposed, like a festering wound). He sits up and curls himself into a protective ball, knowing damn well, he will come back begging.

For as long as Rafa’s here.

For as long as Rafa wants him.

He thinks this is the whole reason of him getting so far deep into the French Open, at all.

No.

He knows it is.

Because he gets to stay in Paris and he gets to end up in Rafa’s bed, or on different furniture in his room, aching and begging for more. Apparently, he’s a masochist. Or maybe being in love with Rafa has always been a form of masochism.

You don’t love a God without suffering.

“I don’t think we can. I want you too much and you want this, whatever this is, whatever medicine you get from this,” he confesses, wrapped around himself, as if he can hide.

“Why do you want me so much, Nick?” Rafa’s voice is distant, like coming from that tower he reigns from or cold, harsh concrete he surrounds himself with. His posture is bent, defeated, like his body is frail, like his body got old. In his mind it did. It his mind it betrayed him and became his biggest enemy.

“I do. I just do. Fuck. I’ve always wanted you. I don’t remember a time I didn’t want you, Rafa,” unlike Rafa, he’s letting go of all the pretences. There are no walls, no layers with Nick. Rafa’s always known how to strip him of it all. Literally and not. So that there was nothing else but raw ache for him beating inside Nick.

“But it started with tennis. Because I am it. I am tennis. Who am I outside tennis?”

“Dude, we haven’t done that much tennis together in a couple of last days and I want you every hour and every minute of every day, regardless,” Nick does. He wants to touch him, maybe hold onto him, put his face in the center of his back, listen to his heartbeat. He wants Rafa to fuck him raw but he wants to cuddle to him afterwards. The more they dive into this madness together, the more the realisation has started to grow inside Nick.

He’s been in love with Rafa since he can remember and there’s no going back for him now.

He doesn’t. Rafa’s entire body language screams distant and hurting on his own. Like Nick was few moments ago, buzzing with clenching need to come (to have him, really or to have Rafa have him).

“I haven’t even touched you, Nick. We only talked about our matches and you came all over yourself,” Rafa throws him a teasing look, but his expression is mostly bitter. Resigned. He raises up and leaves cold, sucking in void behind himself and Nick feeling dirty and freezing, even if wrapped up in his own arms.

“I think it was always blurred together, Raf. Tennis and wanting you. I didn’t know when me wanting to win a rally with you started and me wanting you to fuck me in the locker rooms afterwards ended,” he smirks, but it’s hollow and Rafa’s away now, not looking at him anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Nick wonders if he came. Came in his pants, watching Nick buck against thin air, in fucking humiliating desperation to have something, anything that will fill in that emptiness in him in the shape of his everlasting desire for Rafa. 

That’s why he’s standing away from him. Because it exposes him.

Jesus.

The thought is arousing. It settles with a shimmering heat at the pit of his stomach. This is madness. Sometimes he thinks he lives and breathes this want and sometimes he dreams of the days when it is allowed and they never leave the bed or this room or inside of each other’s bodies.

“See? Tennis is a part of it, though. Because tennis is a part of me. I don’t think I know myself without it, too. And why would I, if there was never anything more important, really,” the walls are cracking, Nick thinks. He never shared this much. Even if it was understandable. Obvious to the naked eye. For everyone who knew about Rafa Nadal – the Greatest of All Time. So now, him shaping this into words spoken out loud for Nick to have, feels huge. Feels overwhelming. Nick wants to go to him. Wrap himself around him. He wants him to know he’s a legend, he’s a monument, he’s an unreachable glory and nothing can touch it, nothing can change it.

But he knows, somehow he knows, it’s not enough. Because Rafa’s heart still beats for tennis, tennis only while his body refuses him to follow.

Fuck.

He thinks he understands now. He gets the connection. He knows what the punishment is about.

“So, does it help you? Does it make you feel better?” Nick confronts Rafa, getting out of the messy sheets, sitting on the edge of the bed, still naked, still marked by his own want for him. His skin is a parchment that could tell whole story of it. The story of his making and remaking, but always wanting, the cycle never ends. He’s not angry. He understands. And he thinks he deserves it. And most of all, he doesn’t want to break the cycle. Ever.

“Just for a moment. Or maybe I just lie to myself to think that.”

Rafa wants tennis just as much as Nick wants Rafa. It’s as simple as that. But Rafa’s body denies him the pursuit of this love, crumbling under him in pain and injuries. Rafa seeks consolation or justice or maybe petty vengeance, so he’s been denying Nick himself the entire time to make him feel this. This emptiness in the form of an ache that nothing can fulfill, because body says no. Because Rafa says no, to transfer the struggle, to sooth it, to deceive himself he can.

Nick puts on his pants and trods to Rafa, in small, hesitant steps, like a boy would, shy and insecure, but wanting to give this monument of strength, reassurance and peace of mind and reparation. He goes to him and dares to put his hands on him, his arms around Rafa’s waist, like he thought of doing, every time they are like this together in the aftermath and Rafa escapes behind his walls. Like he thought of doing if they could get that _maybe_ life, that _someday_ life, that together life in another universe that never happened and never will. And Nick only now maybe realizes he always wanted it.

Rafa doesn’t reject him. Rafa allows the embrace, with Nick’s ear on Rafa’s skin, even if through a material, his body feels solid, warm and within Nick’s reach. God. He waited so long. He gets to listen to his heartbeat. Listening to that rhythm of stability, focus, determination. He used to wonder what Rafa’s heart sounds like during changeovers, with white noise tearing his head apart. He tried to come up with the idea what the cadence might be like, cling to it, having nothing, no point of comparison, to recall. Brief handshakes and quick strokes of hands on bodies over the net were never enough to learn that. To know that.

He doesn’t have to wonder anymore. And the fact Rafa’s pulse seems to be overlaying with his now, like it was meant to happen, like _they_ did, will stay with him forever.

“I don’t mind, Raf. God. I don’t. I treat my body like it means nothing. I treat my tennis like this. _Sulking brat, wasting his talent away_ , all that jam, it’s only fair. For you to use it like that. If it brings you any comfort. If it brings you release. To balance things out. I don’t deserve it anyway. Any of it They say. They’re right.”

Rafa is turning around to face Nick, still not putting any distance between them, still allowing Nick to think this is accepted, this is familiar, this is something they now might be doing, being together. Like lovers. Intimate.

“Nick,” he says. Just his name. Making Nick look at him with the touch of his finger on Nick’s chin, where he was bowing for Rafa, hiding his face in Rafa’s warmth, where he was inhaling the smell, learning it by heart, listening to a heartbeat to remember it for later. Always. Did he say too much? Again. Fuck. He doesn’t know when to shut up. He doesn’t. “You don’t think that, do you?” there’s something soft, warm in Rafa’s eyes. Like he cares. Like he wants good things for Nick. Nick feels even more pliant at this look, than he did when coming undone in Rafa’s hands.

“Yeah. I do.”

“You need training. You need a strong hand. But not like this,” Rafa’s hands are on his face and Nick leans to the touch, like he’s starved, like no one ever touched him like that. No one he yearned for as much as he does, did and will for Rafa.

“Hey, the fact is, I’ve been playing some epic tennis under your strong hand, Raf. Imagine what I could do, if you actually got down to fucking me, hmm? Imagine what I could do with this motivation? I mean, maybe we should make that into a permanent arrangement,” he gets himself closer, with his mouth nuzzling Rafa’s cheek and his earlobe. Daring. Outrageous. Who he always was on court. Especially with Rafa on the other side of the net.

“Ay, chiquitito, you’re a menace,” Rafa leans away, but without a real conviction. The walls cracked and he doesn’t go back behind them, just yet. Nick chases, Rafa lets him, like they used to be on court (the longing for it disturbs the feeling of soft inside him for a moment). There’s a smile on Rafa’s lips, not a sneering one, when he was praising him for spilling so nicely all over himself, not a controlling one, when he was giving orders for Nick to get on all fours. No. There’s affection there. Like they are flirting. Like they are a couple. Like they have been doing this for a while. Living this life, together.

“Yeah, I am, and I need a strong hand, papi,” Nick snorts over the word, even though the closeness they are in tastes like best friends familiarity after sex and it’s overwhelming. Not having this on a regular basis. Having this now at all. He chases Rafa’s chuckle with his mouth, awkward attempt of a kiss, still denied, but they share warm breath and a shape of their smiles.

It’s a good beginning.

“You’re a mess, cariño. We both are a mess,” Rafa doesn’t only mean now, here, Nick implying that he can be fucked into shape. Rafa refers to this fucked up therapy they’ve been going through together, taking Nick’s body hostage, just like Rafa’s entire career did his own. Nick knows that. And Nick still doesn’t care. He still stands by everything he has said. Including him not deserving many good things. Or good things at all. “Quite literally. We need a shower,” now he puts distance between them, keeping Nick at the shoulder’s length, remembering why they are here to begin with. What they have just done. Traces of it on their skins, in the air, on the sheets.

“Hmm, I like the way you think, papito, tell me more,” Nick purrs and tries to outsmart Rafa, with hands trailing his forearms, to put himself closer. To soak this intimacy. To soak this closeness. Fuck. He had his hands on himself. Inside himself. And yet it never felt like this. It’s incomparable. Familiarity in bodies, in spaces, in belonging.

“I don’t think so. You first, princesa” and Rafa’s nudging him forward with his hand on the small of his back, gliding lower, turning into a cheeky clap on his buttocks . There’s playfulness but a routine to this and it makes Nick melt more than it gets him excited.

“You’re relentless, aren’t you?” he’s slipping his shorts off, right in front of Rafa, maybe in a little bit too swaying motion, maybe moving his hips lazily, with a too blatantly seductive purpose. God. He wants to court Rafa. He wants to lure him in. He wants his heated gaze and his parted lips and the chase from on the court they used to have. But this time with a different kind of gratification. Not wining the point. Not winning the match. He wants to coax him slowly with his body into leisure love making. He wants to be enticed like a lover would by a love of his life.

“It’s been said often that relentless is my middle name,” Nick looks back, coyly, to Rafa watching him with his eyebrow raised in amusement, but there’s appreciation, there’s hunger he saw before, there’s want. And it’s shared. And they could do so much with it. They could be in it, together.

“Hmm, and I thought it’s sexy and irresistible,” Nick throws him a last glance, inviting, pleading, flirtatious, all of this in between but Rafa remains unbreakable, like he often did on court, firm monument of resolve and steel will.

@

He tries not to think about Rafa standing here, in this very shower cabin, as he washes himself. With his golden skin, taunt muscles, strength, agility and build of a demigod, because nothing has changed, it all oozed off him anyway, despite the age, despite the physical struggles, the way he moved, the way he commanded the room, a living legend, not a ghost of the pas,. He tries not to touch himself, while giving in and thinking about this, about never seeing him naked for Nick, not in the locker rooms, pragmatic, casual, at work.

No.

For Nick, stripped for him, the same way Nick is for him every night. Stunning, beautiful, sexy and confident. And Nick’s. Fuck. He tries not to delude himself into thinking this can be. Ever. Having this for himself, in the morning, Rafa joining him here so that they could bathe each other, but playfully tease each other’s skin with sloppy kisses and gentle caress. Or in the evening, after the whole exhausting day, of Rafa handling paper work at the Academy or after yet another charity match he organized and Nick actually feeling the burden of a fully committed to exercises and physical strain routine. And they can finally meet each other, like it’s been ages, like it’s been so long of them rushing and running and being separate. And it’s ridiculous and it’s not how real life works, but he would be insatiable for Rafa in that what if of theirs just like he is here, now, failing at touching himself, filled with heat but softness of these possibilities. Because it’s a combination of both. Desire and familiarity he yearns for. So, they would crash like forces fueled by desperation and Rafa would pin him to every available surfaces, as they would lose pieces of clothes along the way to a bathroom and there, in the shower, Rafa would take him, violent and hungry for it and then, cherishing and adoring, because one time would not be enough, after coming fast and hard into pieces, Nick would get down to his knees to have more of him, to drink the very essence of him, to drink his soul to make them one and God, he thinks even that would not be enough and there would be a third time, in bed, with Nick slowly riding him, letting him in, so deep, so completely, into his loose, warm body but into his bleeding out heart, too, where they would only exist in that space of theirs where Nick says his name like the only word he recognizes the meaning of and Rafa leaves marks of his fingers and his teeth on his body like the map to always find home. 

Fuck. This is madness. Like he’s running a fever. He clutches to a wall, letting the water cleanse his body from this almost suffocating craving in him. He clenches his hand into a fist and bites on it, refusing to bring himself to orgasm after continuously clinging to fantasies he’s a hostage of.

He’s tired of touching himself. Of being in this want for Rafa on his own. Of being left with nothing but refusal and rejection and unreachable. This is his punishment. This is Rafa’s remedy. Making Nick almost drive himself mad with want of something denied to him is what Rafa feels like every day about tennis. Rejected, cast out, isolated from what defines the very purpose of his entire life.

And yet, Nick knows he is willing to take any scraps. And Nick knows, he will come back for it, whenever Rafa tells him to.

When putting on his shorts, wiping his hair dry with a towel (it got long, curly and unruly, it’s been a while since he had his fancy haircuts he’s been hiding behind of and it’s really a perfect length for scratching, pulling and yanking and he curses himself for even yearning over that), he casts a glance at the long, vertical mirror near the wardrobe with bathroom accessories. And he remembers, after round four of French Open, Rafa’s fingers inside him, the feel of him, damp and hard, against his hip, hand grabbing his waist to the point of bruising, then trialing to his straining cock with a mere semblance of what he longed for and Nick spilling himself all over the surface, tattooing yet another space inside Rafa’s empty, cold room. To think about it, the only traces of any life inside there were Nick leaving his marks there. Of being taken? No. Of being reminded how he will never have what he wants. Just like Rafa.

The mirror is clean now. No evidence of Nick coming apart, seeing himself, in Rafa’s arms, yet, so far away, still, his own expression so full of ache he almost felt sorry for himself. Now he has only cynical judgment putting a frown on his clean-shaven face.

Because he knows, he will come back and he will take whatever he can. Whatever will be graciously offered.

@

Rafa doesn’t hear him come out of the bathroom. Rafa doesn’t see him stand on the doorstep of it, in his shorts, freshly showered, hair damp, towel on his shoulders. Rafa doesn’t register anything but the mourning inside him, eating him out, consuming everything else and leaving him with that torn-out hole in his chest.

Nick presumes. Nick knows because this is how he feels, carrying this want for the impossible (now knowing: carrying this want for a life together) inside him he can never make happen.

Nick pauses, frozen to the spot at the image. Rafa has his face hidden in his hands and his body might be shaking in silent, choked sobs. The TV is on. The red on screen – something treacherous and cruel. The red dirt, like ashes of a dead volcano now. Nick saw the film. They’ve been playing it all the time, the closer to the final they were getting.

Rafa’s journey through years of becoming the untouchable ruler of this place.

The legend of the King of Clay.

Not a living one. A ghost story now, they all tell to their children, the young stars, the new-comers in melancholy after the times long gone, as if they can resurrect it or put the mantle on anyone else.

This longing after unreachable.

They all chase it.

Nick wants life with Rafa.

Rafa wants to play tennis in his broken body.

And they all want the last romantics of this sport to return and remind them what this used to be all about. How deep. How poignant. How valid.

God. Nick wonders how often he cries like this with Mery. How often with his parents. How helpless it makes them, how hollow and aching. The cracks on Rafa’s walls turn to open fractures and the fortress crumbles to pieces letting Nick into the very core of this festering wound Rafa carries inside. Rafa _is_.

Because he’s nothing but this wound now.

A part of the debris.

Nick has the tools to mend him. Nick knows how to. Does he? Can he? Nick will do anything to. Nick will give everything to. He must have made a sound because Rafa gasps, swallowing the last silent, wrecked sound of numb despair and looks at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

Nick bites on his lip to hold the whimper threatening to burst out of him. His: “Fuck, Raf. I’m sorry, I … I didn’t mean to.” is a hoarse sentence he tries to hold within, not to soil the secrecy of the moment.

Rafa wipes his face with his hand, like putting on a mask, like doing a magic trick, like he can pretend no one saw the mechanism behind the cheap illusion, like they can go along with the theater, give him applause, laugh and cheer, while he’s dying inside.

“It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago. We’re getting a new king soon,” his voice sounds programmed. How many times he practiced this reply, first at his family asking him the eternal, rhetorical question: _Are you okay?_ there is only one answer to, then at the media, clinging to the past, wanting him to bewitch the reality, wanting him to stay with the living, not the ghost scattered into a distant memory.

Nick knows. Nick understands. He holds onto this sacred pain of Rafa he was allowed the key into and treats it like something of theirs, like their world, their bubble of intimacy, theirs. This festering, broken, wounded Rafa is his and he will take anything, everything he can get.

Greedy, masochistic, needy beggar.

They are fucked up. Jesus christ. They are. He doesn’t care. He wants and he will have.

“Bullshit. You know that. They will never another king. They are deluding themselves, stupid fuckers,” Nick goes to Rafa, standing in front of him, with TV turned off now.

“You’re the contestant now, Nick. Maybe it’s you, who will wear the crown,” Rafa smirks at him, but it’s hollow, it’s empty. Not teasing like he can be.

Nick aches. Nick doesn’t want hollow. Nick doesn’t want pretended. He wants him laid open and bare and _his, his, his._

He’s allowed close without Rafa backing away or stopping him. He gets himself in between Rafa’s legs now, towel dropped along the way, with patches of skin for Rafa to write his legacy on.

_Anointed as mine._

These are the tattoos Nick wants to wear. Rafa’s handprints, his bite marks, fingers digging possessively.

“I don’t want that, Raf. I don’t fucking want that,” he reaches out with his hand, to weave it into Rafa’s soft hair, to trace his cheek and his stubble, to steal as much as he can, already feeling himself responding to this closeness, to being allowed to touch in return. God. He’s physically thirsty for it. Slowly, he gets to his knees. Kneels for the right, true King, gladly, eagerly. His hand wandering downwards, from Rafa’s cheek, thinking about what this stubble would feel like on his body, how the marks it would leave could join the collection of those he already wears like seal of belonging and now his hand gets to this strong, broad, steel shoulder and this chest.

Fuck, he wants to lift Rafa’s shirt up, he wants to kiss, bite, mouth all the skin available there, worship it like a holy communion. His mouth waters at the thought of it, but not as much as at the thought of leaning closer now, on his knees, to nuzzle Rafa’s abdomen and then his cock.

(So. He did come, then. Touching himself, when watching Nick fall to pieces. He did fucking spill himself just from the words they shared and from seeing Nick thrust into emptiness in maddening want for Rafa. God, this realisation makes him hard in a manner of seconds, more than the shape and the musk of Rafa’s cock against his mouth does.)

He’s tasting the saltiness and warmth of it now, with his tongue, through the material of Rafa’s shorts. And he’s still allowed, his hand now mapping Rafa’s belly to clutch to the hem of his shirt, to have more, more, more of it. “Fuck, Raf, please.”

And then, there are fingers in his hair, pulling, grabbing, yanking his head away (the whine inside his chest builds and comes out like a trembling gasp, because he was denied, he was so close and he was denied again and again and again.)

“This is what I carry. This is what I carry every day. I want. I want. I want. And I can’t have. I can never have my tennis back again,” he holds Nick by his hair, getting himself close, like a lover could, with mouth a breath away from Nick’s.

Nick’s arching under the touch, the feeling of Rafa’s fingers violently claiming him like this, a dream, making him melt and long and mewl for this, fuck, he’s pathetic. And then the words follow, whispered like intimate promises. But cruel. Vicious even.

“I could fuck your pretty mouth now. These full lips wrapped around my cock, moist, shiny, like peaches, like sweet, sweet fruit,” his thumb rubs Nick’s bottom lip and Nick struggles with violent desire to suck on it, like he would on Rafa’s cock with abandon. Like he wants to. “I could taste myself on those lips later on, but before that you would suck me so good, so deep, until you choke on me, Nick and I would feel myself disappear into this mouth when I fuck it,” now he does. Now he cannot not give in. He’s a weak, greedy whore for it and any replacement will do. Rafa’s voice breaks over the words and his eyelids flutter. Fuck. Nick doesn’t even know what his face looks like when he comes. He flattens his tongue around that thumb mirroring Rafa’s words (mirroring actions spoken of, he yearns for) as if he would if Rafa allowed him to taste him, to have him in real. “and your eyes are watering but you want this, you have wanted this for so long, you think you can’t get enough of this and I’m so deep in you, in your throat, pulling your hair, stretching your mouth so wide with my thrusts, and then I’m coming, and you swallow, you swallow every drop I can feel that with my fingers on your throat, I can feel you drink me up, like you’ve wanted this so long. Or I’m coming on your face and you love it, you’re coming just from it, without me touching you, because you’ve wanted it for so long, have you Nick?” And Rafa pulls out his thumb, a trail of saliva like a red thread or a leash? And he lets Nick go, drops him into the abyss (on the ground) to the sound of a moan and a whimper mingled into one as Nick does come in his pants again, the entire fucking shower redundant.

He’s on his knees, scrambling for balance, panting, burning in humiliation, burning in _want, want, want_ , when he feels Rafa’s mouth on top of his head, kissing, apologetically, kissing with softness, kissing like a lover would. And then Rafa pushes his dagger in.

“But I won’t, Nick. I won’t do that. Because life is like that and we can’t always have what we want,” and Rafa is standing up and leaving for a shower, with Nick looking up after him, suddenly fired up, defiant, maybe even furious.

This want is madness. This want is going to be their self-destruction.

“I will win this fucking crown, Rafa. I will win this fucking throne of yours. But I won’t stop on that. I will make them crown me their new king. Nick Kyrgios, fucking prince of clay, that’s rich. That’s insane. But this is what will happen. And I will make them forget about you. No longer a legend. No longer a myth. Not even a ghost. Nothing. Just red dirt like ash on the grave,” he groans the words like a curse to Rafa pausing by the door of a bathroom, his back turned to Nick, that’s the image, that’s what he will remember.

The walls never crumbled. The light never got in. He was never allowed and he never got to have what he wanted. His fists clutch the carpet on the floor and he thinks he feels burning in his eyes, like a child denied, like a boy rejected. The inside of his chest hurts, like there’s something sharp and merciless piercing it.

Rafa stands there, unaffected. That’s what it looks like.

Made of stone.

Made of steel.

Made of red dirt.

Monument of untouchable.

Now.

Only now.

Because he got broken so many times over and over again, nothing can touch him anymore.

Nick doesn’t want to think like this. Nick wants to hate him. Tear him apart, like he used to on court, because he wanted so much and he couldn’t have it. Have him.

And then Rafa says. Calm, certain, believing. “Good. Good. Let them. Let them think that. Show them, Nick. Show them what fools they are for ever thinking I’m not a ghost and I am coming back.”

And then he disappears, like one, behind the doors that shut behind him, with eerie finality.

There’s wetness on Nick’s face now, pouring freely.

After anger and denial always comes despair. This is how you mourn. This is how you deal with death.

So he does.

*

He plays like possessed in the final. He might have mourned his share of them, of Rafa, of himself, but anger inside him is endless.

He never could put it away.

He never did.

It often feels like anger is all he’s got.

Anger and that want and that ache unfulfilled that fuels his obsession and now fuels his tennis. Or maybe always did. 

So he slides on red ashes, dancing on the grave of the fallen, thinking about Rafa watching, defile his kingdom, with his tricks and his attitude unworthy of slam matches, with his fury and defiance.

_Watch me steal your crown._

_Watch me take your throne._

_While you can’t._

_While you’re unable to._

_Watch me exorcise the ghosts of you, of me, of us._

He commands the crowd, he makes the crowd love him, because see the replacement in him. Ungrateful, blind, desperate bastards. (Is he that different though? In his chase after him?). He conducts their cheers, ecstatic acclamations of a new reign, heralding their new saviour. He mocks them inside, he laughs at their faces out loud, letting them think it’s out of joy for tennis, it’s out of will to win. He cackles in vicious triumph and lets them think it’s in elation.

He stands on Rafa Nadal’s grave (ashes covered kingdom of the king no more) with arms raised in triumph, roar of furious victory tearing the sky apart, winning the war for the red throne, with the king broken, with the king in pieces, watching, aching, never ever having this.

Like he denied Nick himself.

Like he denied Nick _them_.

He’s blind, he’s deaf, to everything, but his heart hammering in vicious fury, fire burning so bright he wants to reveal this place for what it is.

A cemetery of red ash.

A graveyard.

They are cheering, mindless crowd, desperately hoping, hungry for games to continue, hungry for the emperor to return and grace them with his glory. Still taking this place for an arena for the games.

They think he did. They think he’s reincarnated in yet another pretender. In yet another imposter. They think he’s returned to them.

_All rejoice. Let thy name be blessed._

The Emperor does descend, then, an echo of one, an apparition. A ghost of the past. But they are so blind with longing, they are so hungry for his glory, they pretend, the time rewound.

_This is how you cheer for the true ruler of this place. This is how you worship him._

They show him and Nick growls, furious, envious, aching. Wanting to bark at them, wanting to growl at them: _he is mine and I am his_.

Pretending himself. They ever were this.

Ungrateful, blind, desperate bastard.

Rafa is here to crown him (mark the pretender for what he is). Rafa is here to pass on his legacy (to feed the delusion of the crowds yearning for red games to continue, unchanged, glorious, exciting, like before). Nick is brimming with perverse excitement. (Or blind ecstasy?). Will he bow for Nick? Will he go to his knees for Nick? He might as well, with awarding him with his beloved trophy, putting that crown on his head with a blessing, with an anointment (in bitter pretences that the games must go on). Nick brims with giddiness.

They show the film, too. The archives of the past glory, Rafa was mourning over yesterday. Rafa never really stopped, stuck in his own stage of anger and bargaining. Nick feels sick. Seeing him all steel posture and a mask of curt indifference. Like they are watching in memoriam and he is standing right there, among the ashes, he is here, as bright as ever, as unrepeatable, the only one, and they wallow in ceremony of mourning a ghost. Nick wants to scream. He wants to burn this place to the ground to reveal the stage for what it really is: his kingdom they desecrate by pretending there can ever be a successor, by having him sanctify one.

(He wants to bow for Rafa, he wants to adore him, he wants to pay his tribute, he _wants, wants, wants_. He’s just won Roland Garros and nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change. For him. For them. The cycle of grief never ends).

Rafa does present him with a trophy. He keeps his mask on, all casual pleasantries, congratulations, these fingers clasping his palm, like they weren’t deep inside him, bringing him to orgasm over and over again, that hand, petting his shoulder, like it didn’t close on his cock to pump him dry, to make him hurt in overstimulation, this mouth speaking hollow, empty compliments, like he didn’t speak of want, wanting to claim him, wanting him all the same. He did. He must have.

The rest is a blur. Of flashes, of rushed interviews, of fake smiles. His box is empty. He drove everyone away, vain and stubborn. Inconsistent and whimsical. Scared and weak. The rest of the team went back home. There is no one to celebrate with. There is nothing to celebrate with. The victory ends up tasting like red ash on his tongue.

When he finds himself in the lockers, he thinks he breathes for the first time. Clean air. Not haze of the battle for the impossible. For something he can never have. The trophy in his hands felt cold, too big and unfitting. Cheap replacement. Lies he tells himself. Revenge poorly concealing ache that never heals. The clay on his skin feels dirty and treacherous now. Painting him for a pretender he is, marking him as a desperate fool chasing the ideal, bowing for the one true king, in the end, anyway.

He needs a shower. He needs to purge himself off everything. But he can’t, he never will, Rafa’s fingertips, his traces are not on the outside for him to get himself rid of them). Rafa left his own tattoos on his skin, the map for Nick to come back home or leading him astray, farther and farther away from a safe shore.

As if conjured up, the voice of the rightful king stops him mid track on his way to a baptism. “You played so good. You played such tennis, Nick.”

Fuck. He stops immediately. He’s under his control completely. Still. Still. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change. Rafa stands at the doorway, unreadable, hiding in the shadows (or behind his walls), but his voice and the words coax Nick into feeling of utter submission.

He could crawl to him on his knees now. He would. Like in every other vision after their matches he would imagine himself doing. On his hands and knees, in his tribute of reverence. Rafa’s cock, his communion wafer. But he’s a sinner, he’s an ill intent, so he has none of the congregation’s holy secrecy, but insatiable greed instead. And then he would think of Rafa still panting with ferocious thrill from the court, fucking his mouth, making the ceremony be all carnal. He would think of them tearing on each other skin against every available surface there and he’s thinking about it now, too.

And nothing else remains but this. _Want, want, want._ In violence. In ache.

“So, you’re saying you like me in your crown, Raf?” he tries to sound nonchalant and flirty and unaffected, when his body yearns over distance between them.

“Yes, Nick. I do,” the distance grows smaller as Rafa starts walking towards him, Nick’s body like pulled by the strings, he could be arching, a lost, deserted planet within the orbit of the brightest star.

“More than all the rest of the pretenders?” he hopes he comes off as playful not desperate. He knows, he never does.

“I like you more than the rest. Period,” and Rafa’s there, close, within Nick’s reach, and yet too far, and distant. Nick wants to pull him close, wants to claim his true reward. This is why he won, for him, to be his legacy, to carry this mantle of his name really.

Fuck. Not for the first time he thinks of Rafa being there, guiding him, in his box, the only one he needs. Grounding presence, fire in his belly, fuel in his heart. He looks at Rafa’s lips. They never kissed. He doesn’t know how Rafa tastes. He doesn’t know so much. Of that life they could have, nothing is real. Nothing ever will be.

There’s a whimper trapped in his throat, threatening to burst free, out loud, deafening. He almost says it. His prayer. The combination of words that he carries the weight of on his tongue, in his soul, always. _Rafa, please._

But he swallows it all back, like bile of needles.

“Shouldn’t you bow down for the new king, then? Isn’t this customary?” he fights for the composure, for the pretences. After all, they both are.

“You want me on my knees for you, Nick? How else should I celebrate? How else do you want me to pay my tribute?” and he’s crowding Nick against the lockers, and Nick is letting him. Of course he is. Somewhere at the back of his head, in the core of his body he knew this is coming. Rafa getting even. For taking tennis away from him. He will remind Nick what Nick can never have. And Nick will still take all the scraps, as Rafa grabs Nick’s hands in his firm grip and puts them above his head, pinning him to the surface, with his body now, perfect angles fitting Nick in all the right places.

And yet he never learned them with his fingers, he could never commit them to memory as his.

“This is only the beginning, Rafa. I told you. I promised you. I will rip that memory of your from their hearts, from their heads and I will replace it. And you will be no more,” Nick has only words as his weapon. His body is treacherous, responding to the closeness in gravity, as Rafa thrusts his thigh in between Nick’s legs to rub him, to play on his every string like he would with his shots on his racket. Nick refuses to make a sound, biting on his lips, looking into Rafa’s face with fierce defiance.

“Hmmmm, you will. Like you should. Like I will applaud you, Nick. For, you see, I am always on my knees for you on court. When you play,” and with his thigh bringing Nick off and his hands leaving marks on Nick’s wrists he still gets himself closer to mouth his cheek, to kiss it with tenderness that breaks Nick into pieces more than hanging by a thread of this all-devouring want does. And the words that follow. “But the question is, will I be no more in your head too, nene?” tear the whimper and the cry he struggled so hard to keep inside from his throat.

And of course, Rafa lets him go then. The grounding force, the leash on his neck, the hand holding him close, protecting him from falling, the hand pushing him over the edge. And Nick’s left half-hard, lips parted, hooded eyes, fever on his skin.

And Nick’s left wanting. As the wheel keeps on turning and they are back to square one.

But Rafa is not done. He’s lethally wounded with anger, escaping the grief. He’s cruel. He’s broken and Nick’s right there with him, so he takes it eagerly, leaning against the locker, gripping the surface of it not to touch himself. “Congratulations on an amazing slam, Nick,” his voice sounds like it used to when he paid tribute to his opponents, sometimes genuine, sometimes methodical, but never personal.

Like it isn’t now. Like Rafa doesn’t know every inch of Nick’s skin by heart and didn’t pick him apart piece by piece to see the rawest core, bleeding out for him.

“Fuck you,” Nick spits like a bile of fury or a shot of frustration or a bitter, cool statement. The sounds drops in the middle, hollow and unconvincing.

Rafa chuckles. It’s cold. Unlike him. Mocking the choice of words, mocking Nick’s laid bare there. Knowing how not far from the truth this is. And then he makes a hushing motion with his finger against his lips. Nick stares. Can’t help himself. He’s going to be thinking about those lips now for the rest of the season, of the month, of his life. He’s going to be choking on a realisation he never got to know the taste of them, the feel of them, on him, around him, inside him. Nick thinks about the trophy he’s just won (all the struggles with tennis he went through to finally get here, to matter, to be valid) and then he thinks about having to taste this mouth, once, twice, in that life they should have together and he knows there is and there always will be only one choice for him.

But there are no dots to connect with them. They are parallel lines with no point of contact. Which Rafa confirms, delivering generic wishes he always had for everyone. “Good luck with the rest of the season.”

And then Nick watches him leave, like he did many times before, his back turned, his walls raised high up, Nick left on the outside, _wanting, wanting, wanting_.

*

The days that follow Rolland Garros are a blur, of him drinking to numb the emptiness and humiliation (to celebrate, of course), of him falling back into the routine of a dull, loveless marriage with tennis, dropping out from the beginning of the grass season, withdrawing to Australia, back home, where he’s safe, where he remembers childhood, where he has semblance of a whole.

And he pretends he doesn’t dream of all their what ifs, doesn’t pine after the possibilities and most of all, does not want Rafa, still, still, even more, every waking hour of every day, fucking the pretenses away with people who look nothing alike (blond, slight girls searching for casual fun, letting him be in control, as if he can forget).

And then John barges into him room one day, as Nick marinates in aftereffects of one of the nights of exorcising his memory, groaning at his head splitting, his body aching and his stomach being stuck in his throat. He can’t throw his usual: “The fuck, Johnny boy?” because he’s still coming round to being alive, let alone remotely functional.

But then John does help him in the process, throwing an envelope at him. “So, you’re really the big shit now, mate. Nadal’s Academy requests your presence for their annual charity event. I mean, only the top game players get to be invited, and, no offence, dude, but who would have thought, all right? I’m super happy and proud of you, Nick. It’s 2 weeks time and well, I’m assuming we’re not gunning for this year’s grass season anyway, are we?”

Nick’s fully awaken by the time John ends his excited monologue, opening the shutters , letting the sun and the air in to this cave of debauchery. The piercing feeling in his head is not longer because of the light or the alcohol still digesting in his system. Nor are the flutters in his stomach as he traces the Bull sign on the paper with shaky fingers. He’s glad he can put how hoarse and weak his voice sounds down to being hangover, when he says (or demands) indefinite (or desperate). “Book the tickets. Of course I’m going.”

The prospect of Wimbledon grows insignificant. He hopes and he wants, now. And nothing else matters, as the cycle rewinds and he’s back to the start.


End file.
